Antenna Placement

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:24 am

Has any one placed an antenna in a fabric covered wing or fuselage? if so, how well does it work and what kind of antenna and where did you place it. I'm covering an L-5 and would like to hide the VHF antenna but I'm don't know if the silver is going to block the antenna.

Seafury

Taylor Stevenson · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:56 am

What model L-5? Ambulance or observer? You can put it externally on the underside of the aircraft attached to the recognition light panel. If you have an ambulance, especially a late model (E-1 or G), you could drill a +/- .75" dia hole in one of the aft greenhouse panes and put it there and make it easily removable (quick disconnect) so at shows you could stash it under the litter deck and say the hole is a field mod for the BC-659 Command Set's Telescoping antenna. What I did, is put the antenna inside the vertical stabilizer attached to the wooden rib at the base. It works pretty well with my radios, but not the best. Unless you're restoring the bird to be completely authentic, there's no reason to sacrifice functionality for appearance in my opinion. Good luck and if you have any more questions let me know

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 12:22 pm

I have an L-5E, I think I'm going to go with this http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/a ... ystems.php . I found it after I posted and have found some good reviews. I am trying ot be as authentic as possible. I can put both the Xponder and Xceiver in the wing I think just separated by 24 inches. That will allow me to run the coax to the radios that I'm going to use and keep them out of view. What did you do with your radios?

Taylor Stevenson · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:44 pm

My radios are located under my instrument panel. They are removable with two screws, a coax, and a cannon plug. Takes me 2 min to go from Garmin modern to original

I had my antenna coax cables and ELT cables cloth covered and hid them at a bottom of a wire bundle that runs (on a G model) from the original radio modulator (located between the pilots legs) to the aft litter deck and to the tail. It works quite well, but I may put a removable external antenna on my aft greenhouse pane in my BC-659 antenna hole (as mentioned earlier). I'm having a bit of trouble receiving with the antenna in the vertical stabilizer. Sometimes I have to turn 90 degrees to get a signal, but if it were easy everyone would do it right :wink:

This is the only photo I have right now, but you can see the removable panel under the instrument panel.

If you'd like some more photos of my radio set up I can take some when I'm home from college, over Thanksgiving break.

Taylor

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11330

The aluminum powder used in the silver dope will block the signal somewhat. Do you need to use silver dope if you use a finish dope with a UV blocker?

I wonder if you could dope a test panel, put your antenna behind it, and get a ground radio check (or even do it from the air) to test your idea?

I'm no antenna expert, but I do know that radomes are made a specific thickness that corresponds somehow to the frequency being used to get best efficiency. Not sure if that applies with wire antennas though or only dish type (radar) antennas.

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:01 am

Hey Brandon,
I did some looking around starting with that antenna in the link. Some J-3/L-4 guys said they are working pretty good. The company says you can use them under fabric and the Aluminum doesn't affect it. So long as it's not attached to a metal structure. I'll give this a wirl and see how it goes. How bout you mister engineer design me a rack that swings up under the panel and locks out of sight!!

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:19 am

me109me109 wrote:

My radios are located under my instrument panel. They are removable with two screws, a coax, and a cannon plug. Takes me 2 min to go from Garmin modern to original

I had my antenna coax cables and ELT cables cloth covered and hid them at a bottom of a wire bundle that runs (on a G model) from the original radio modulator (located between the pilots legs) to the aft litter deck and to the tail. It works quite well, but I may put a removable external antenna on my aft greenhouse pane in my BC-659 antenna hole (as mentioned earlier). I'm having a bit of trouble receiving with the antenna in the vertical stabilizer. Sometimes I have to turn 90 degrees to get a signal, but if it were easy everyone would do it right :

Taylor

I wonder if that antenna may be good for you as Taylor?you can probably put it in tgrou your landing light or worst case tgrou the tank bay cagain the cub guys seem to like it.

Taylor Stevenson · **Posted:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 9:03 am

That may be an option for me. If you havent already, you need to be in touch with Duncan Cameron (PM me for contact info). On his beautiful E-model (which received OSH Best L-Bird the year before mine) he designed a radio rack that swung up and underneath the panel, kind of like you were wanting. I'm sure he has photos and remembers how he did it.
T

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:31 am

Yeah, I've been in touch with Duncan. I'll give him a try, usually he wants a good bit of cash for his help, I don't blame him, but after getting married and buying a house, I don't have much to give up.

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11330

Does your antenna require a ground plane? It may not work well without one.

Seafury1 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2010 1:19 pm

Not according to the website. Says it is worse with the ground plane.

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Antenna Placement

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