What did you do with your triple tail today?

My very expensive Garmin radio was not performing so very well in controlled airspace. After some fooling around blind and in the dark, I borrowed an SWR meter and the problem became obvious. I added 4 thin aluminum strips 3” longer than the center of the frequency (wavelength) range, radiating out from the existing ground plane and was quite surprised when the performance got much worse. After some experimenting with different lengths on the strips we got pretty good performance out of my antenna but I was greatly dismayed by the small random changes we made and the large effect they had on the antenna performance. My son has a degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis in electromagnetic radiation, we were doing math on the ground plane design, but antennas are frustrating to work on. From my experience I would recommend that you work really hard to get your hands on an SWR meter before spending much time working on an antenna. It is imposable to know when you have made an improvement and at what frequency the improvement is at without one.
 
Thanks that's good info. I was just going to use a light gun with the tower and radio when in the air....just kidding.

Nice to know it's probably not my 1950's radio that's the problem.

Handheld seems to be working. I hold In one specific place in the cockpit when on the ground.

Always good to pack a handheld anyways. When airborne all is good so who knows. Maybe it's the buried metal piping in the ground?

The 14-13-2 flies so well I have been patiently putting up with all her idiosyncracies.

Cheers.
 
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