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Old May 12th 18, 07:17 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Darryl Ramm
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Default Becker Transponder E10 error message

On Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 9:09:44 AM UTC-7, Scott Williams wrote:
On Friday, May 11, 2018 at 4:10:14 PM UTC-5, Steve Cameron wrote:
I've recently bought a glider that has an older Becker transponder(mode c), and every time I turn it on it invariably displays the E10 error code. In reading past reports of this issue(2006/2008) on the net this seemed to be a fairly common occurence, with no real solution. Becker says its a transmission fault involving the antenna and or ground plane. My local avionics shop tested it for the two-year cert, everything checked out OK, than at the end of the check the E10 pops up. We've tried adding a short piece of coax at the antenna end, as well as insuring the ground plane is truly grounded. So far nothing seems to rid the error message. My avionic tech here seems to think it was a design flaw in the unit, and I'm very tempted to just scrap it and move on. Is there anyone out there who has successfully dealt with this issued?
Thanks
SC


FWIW,
last fall I installed a trig tt22 in a cirrus, used a copper sheet I bought from hobby lobby, .016 thick, If I remember correctly. Also I read somewhere that a round ground plane was undesirable, a square was preferable. I can't seem to find that reference now.
I used copper to easily form it around a glassed in rudder cable guide.

Good Luck,
Scott W.


A square ground ground plane is not really more desirable, you want symmetrical antenna performance. The reason for using a non-circular one is if often you could not get an appropriate size circle to fit, and then it might be better to find a different antenna location... but not always possible. Bigger is better and beyond a certain size the shape is not critical, I just don't want people thinking a square or other shape is necessarily more ideal than a circle.

Schempp-Hirth have great installation instructions for many of their gliders including rectangular ground planes, and cutouts for obstructions etc. Again, best to follow those. And they also use copper foil and are careful to ground that to the antenna and use appropriate type of antennas and nice mounting washers for electrical contact etc. (the common rod style antenna with a single mounting nut is not a good choice to mount onto a foil groundplane IMNSHO, they work much better on a solid aluminium plate) . Foil or thin sheets can be a good solution to curved surface and difficult shapes, but heavier plates are great if there is space for them.

Again. most glider manufactures have good technical notes on transponder antenna installs, if there is not one for your glider find one for a similar glider, with similar composite construction and try to follow it reasonably closely.... and sounds like you may have done that for the Cirrus.

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Back to the original issue, we have no idea what is wrong here, I would be doing the easiest/quickest tests first to try to work out what is faulty.