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Spruce Homebuilders Antenna?

They have been used on RV's and some people will tell you they work. Indeed they do work...it's no their performance that is the issue, it's the poor mounting, poor aerodynamics and poor connection.

You're building a nice RV, do yourself a favor now and buy a good Comant/DM/RAMI and never look back.

I could type on the subject for a long time, but trust me....

Cheers,
Stein
 
Mine is permanently mounted on the roof of my hangar, and we're both perfectly happy with that arrangement.....
 
Ironflight said:
Mine is permanently mounted on the roof of my hangar, and we're both perfectly happy with that arrangement.....
Click to expand...

Same here. It works fine on my scanner. And occasionally I hook it to my handheld to talk with incoming traffic.
 
My -8 came with the 45 degree version on the underside. While I would like to go with one buried in the wing tip, I have to say I've had acceptable service with this one. I'm sure the Comant type ones are better but are also a lot more expensive. I get good range and strong signal and few complaints from anyone I'm talking to unless I am really far away. No #'s to share but I just completed a circuit over the great west (TX, OK, KS, WY, CO, NM) and used flight following for almost the whole trip. I never had a problem with communications.

Anecdotal but another data point.
 
All kidding aside, the antenna does work very well as a Comm Antenna - I used to have the same kind of things on my old Grumman, and they worked great. The problem with the simple wire whip is in getting a good "RF seal" with the simple connections (rather than a BNC/Coax connector). Frankly, it is hard to get a good connection that doesn't "leak" RF all over inside your metal cockpit. If you have a simple panel and equipment that is not sensitive to RF, you'll be fine. If, however, you have less robust gauges, LED indicators, and autopilots, you might have glitches every time you transmit, as you'll end up with RF bouncing around the cockpit.

That's the only reason I joke about wire whip - I started with one while the Val was still under construction, and after testing, changed it out for a better unit.

Paul
 
You can even...

...get a nearly identical one from RA Miller complete with a TSO tag --

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/av534.php

However, it is 3 times the cost...:)

As Paul says, they do work, but might "leak" RF depending on your physical configuration.

Ironflight said:
All kidding aside, the antenna does work very well as a Comm Antenna - I used to have the same kind of things on my old Grumman, and they worked great. The problem with the simple wire whip is in getting a good "RF seal" with the simple connections (rather than a BNC/Coax connector). Frankly, it is hard to get a good connection that doesn't "leak" RF all over inside your metal cockpit. If you have a simple panel and equipment that is not sensitive to RF, you'll be fine. If, however, you have less robust gauges, LED indicators, and autopilots, you might have glitches every time you transmit, as you'll end up with RF bouncing around the cockpit.

That's the only reason I joke about wire whip - I started with one while the Val was still under construction, and after testing, changed it out for a better unit.

Paul
Click to expand...
 
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