We've had a excellent results with the "Airkit" antenna (made in AUSTRALIA by the way! ) mounted on the rear wheel shock strut. I believe it came with the mount, I filed the corners of the mount down to round them (looks better), we put rubber tubing under it to protect the powder coating, and I was able to slip a zip-tie through it (red arrow) as a secondary leash. The zip tie further down on the cable should leash it as well.
I had tried 3 different antennas / ground planes, and even the "miracle whip" ground plane-less string antenna in the wing- for me the AirKit was by far the best, but there's a bit of black magic in radio waves so sometimes you have o experiment to get the best product for your situation. It's well worth it though when you sound professional over the air (as opposed to both you and the tower asking each other to repeat everything several times-- they're pissed before you even get there to screw anything up ... ;)
Also, I try to keep in mind that radio antennas put out very powerful high frequency EMF radiation, so I try to mount them as far from the pilot / passenger's craniums as possible. The strength of an electromagnetic field diminishes as the square of the distance from the field source- trikes aren't very big, but a small increase in distance from you or interference sources can exponentially reduce the problems.
We use an MGL radio and love them. Very small, 6 Watts, all digital (good signal / noise discrimination), easy dual channel monitoring (so you can listen to tower on one freq and still communicate with your wing man on the other, etc-- multiple other situation advantages), designed for use with gloved hands, built in intercom (no need for the complexity / charging / cost of Lynx system), great music input rapidly and smoothly dims the music so you don't miss a word of transmission, etc, etc. The MGL Enigma dash can program the MGL radio too which is nice. Anyway, we like their products.
Hopefully, sharing some of our experimentation and solutions here can give each other a head start on good systems.
Hi XC Triker, I did try the Air Kit antenna, and I fitted it as you have. But I found that I was not getting all the calls coming through, so I mounted it on the Kingpost. This was better, but not as good as I would like it to be. So I fitted the Commant CI 121 antenna and this works great. The way I have mounted it is only a proof of concept and not the finished product.
It does look nice there YFT. How much does it cost? Painted black on your trike would look even better. Can you flip the mount upside down and hide the mount under the engine cover? Let me know how the coverage is there-- I get really excellent performance out of mine, but sometimes in rare situations on the ground, and very rarely in the air, it seems the engine may block transmissions on the other side of it (it's happened about 3 times total so far).
Hi XC Triker, I did have a lot of black spots using the AirKit antenna mounted on the gas strut and I was having trouble picking up Melbourne Centre at times. So I decided to use the CI-121, and it just happened to fit on a bracket that I used on the strobe lights on the wing of the Arrow. That's why the bracket was black. I couldn't believe that a bracket I had made for the wing would fit on the mast of the Tanarg and it was the right angle as well. So that's why it is mounted that way. The next one will be mounted behind the engine cover. I did want to use the CI-122 or CI-292-2 antenna but there was not enough room under the Tanarg. I like these antennas as they are well made and you don't get much Radiation near the PAX. I use these antennas on a lot of GA aircraft that I put radios into.
Comments
YFT... so you found this to be the best location and mount for the MGL??
Looks good- even better if painted to match.
We've had a excellent results with the "Airkit" antenna (made in AUSTRALIA by the way! ) mounted on the rear wheel shock strut. I believe it came with the mount, I filed the corners of the mount down to round them (looks better), we put rubber tubing under it to protect the powder coating, and I was able to slip a zip-tie through it (red arrow) as a secondary leash. The zip tie further down on the cable should leash it as well.
I bought mine in the UK at http://wingsandwheels.com/antenna_vhf_airband_gps_mobile_e.htm but since it's made in Australia, you could probably pick it up quicker / cheaper there.
I had tried 3 different antennas / ground planes, and even the "miracle whip" ground plane-less string antenna in the wing- for me the AirKit was by far the best, but there's a bit of black magic in radio waves so sometimes you have o experiment to get the best product for your situation. It's well worth it though when you sound professional over the air (as opposed to both you and the tower asking each other to repeat everything several times-- they're pissed before you even get there to screw anything up ... ;)
Also, I try to keep in mind that radio antennas put out very powerful high frequency EMF radiation, so I try to mount them as far from the pilot / passenger's craniums as possible. The strength of an electromagnetic field diminishes as the square of the distance from the field source- trikes aren't very big, but a small increase in distance from you or interference sources can exponentially reduce the problems.
We use an MGL radio and love them. Very small, 6 Watts, all digital (good signal / noise discrimination), easy dual channel monitoring (so you can listen to tower on one freq and still communicate with your wing man on the other, etc-- multiple other situation advantages), designed for use with gloved hands, built in intercom (no need for the complexity / charging / cost of Lynx system), great music input rapidly and smoothly dims the music so you don't miss a word of transmission, etc, etc. The MGL Enigma dash can program the MGL radio too which is nice. Anyway, we like their products.
Hopefully, sharing some of our experimentation and solutions here can give each other a head start on good systems.
Hi XC Triker, I did try the Air Kit antenna, and I fitted it as you have. But I found that I was not getting all the calls coming through, so I mounted it on the Kingpost. This was better, but not as good as I would like it to be. So I fitted the Commant CI 121 antenna and this works great. The way I have mounted it is only a proof of concept and not the finished product.
It does look nice there YFT. How much does it cost? Painted black on your trike would look even better. Can you flip the mount upside down and hide the mount under the engine cover? Let me know how the coverage is there-- I get really excellent performance out of mine, but sometimes in rare situations on the ground, and very rarely in the air, it seems the engine may block transmissions on the other side of it (it's happened about 3 times total so far).
Hi XC Triker, I did have a lot of black spots using the AirKit antenna mounted on the gas strut and I was having trouble picking up Melbourne Centre at times. So I decided to use the CI-121, and it just happened to fit on a bracket that I used on the strobe lights on the wing of the Arrow. That's why the bracket was black. I couldn't believe that a bracket I had made for the wing would fit on the mast of the Tanarg and it was the right angle as well. So that's why it is mounted that way. The next one will be mounted behind the engine cover. I did want to use the CI-122 or CI-292-2 antenna but there was not enough room under the Tanarg. I like these antennas as they are well made and you don't get much Radiation near the PAX. I use these antennas on a lot of GA aircraft that I put radios into.
All the best
Peter