REFLECTOR: Poor Comm Performance

[Sid Knox]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kirk Aragon" <aragon_kirk at hotmail.com>
To: "Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list" <reflector at tvbf.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Poor Comm Performance



>... but COM1 has been disconnected from the winglet and is connected to an 
>external antenna on the bottom of the aircraft.

> I had the local radio repair shop check my radio stack (SWR meter test). 
> They verified that both radios are working well.

This does not make sense to me.  A SWR meter is used to test antennas and 
transmission lines (coax from radio to antenna) not "radio stacks".
Did they test the Terra transmitters?  If they did and found  "both radios 
are working well" then what did they find when testing the three (original 
COM1, original COM2, and new external COM1) transmission lines?

An otherwise proper antenna (new COM1) that is missing a ground plane should 
easily show-up as a problem on a SWR meter.  But even then, it should work 
better than 3 miles (if you are in the air).

Unless you have not told us everything relevant, in my opinion it is too 
soon to be cutting things open and installing new antennas to fix an as-yet 
undefined problem.

Sid Knox
Oklahoma

Velocity  173 RG  N199RS
Starduster  N666SK
KR2         N24TC
W7QJQ