REFLECTOR: Transponder Location and Ground Plane

[Scott Derrick]

I did a similar approach with a square ground plane that wraps up 2 
inches on the outside of the battery box, this allowed me to offset the 
antenna and not require standoffs for the battery.

Very short cable to radio, no problems with ATC seeing me in remote 
western areas and up to 18,000 ft so far.

Scott

Alex Balic wrote:

> I fabricated an 8” dia circle from aluminum, mounted that to the 
> bottom of the battery tray, and the pre-fab (spruce) antenna goes 
> through the center of that this arrangement requires stand-offs for 
> the battery though.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] 
> *On Behalf Of *Bob Jackson
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 21, 2005 8:23 PM
> *To:* Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders List
> *Cc:* Bob Jackson (Home)
> *Subject:* REFLECTOR: Transponder Location and Ground Plane
>
> We want to fly our Velocity in the flight levels and will need better 
> than normal transponder operation and range up there. Is there a 
> consensus on the best place to put the transponder antenna, and also 
> whether or not it's better to use a blade that's outside the hull, or 
> if the internal one suffers no lose? We have a lot of carbon fiber in 
> various places around our hull and are a little concerned about 
> masking the transponder antenna, and are therefore thinking it may be 
> best to use a protruding external blade antenna.
>
> For those using the internal antenna, are you mounting it oriented 
> down with some kind of arrangement so that there's a ground plane 
> above it? How big of a ground plane are you using? Where are you 
> putting it?
>
> Sorry if I'm covering old ground,
>
> Thanks for the help,
>
> Bob Jackson
>
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