FLARM Fusion Range

Matt,

Are you sure the that the Black Mount ABS does not have carbon for a colorant?

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

On Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 8:29:43 AM UTC-7, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
Matt,

Are you sure the that the Black Mount ABS does not have carbon for a colorant?

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

Matt,

I suspect that the colorant in ABS is carbon black.
Make sure there is little to no carbon content, which would seriously alter antenna and system performance. BLACK anything -- including plastics -- is usually the worst, as they often have high carbon content. Think of applying black paint with carbon in it as applying very thin, black tin foil. Would you do that? Of course not. It would be both a shield and reflector, both of which are bad for the antenna (shield), the system connected to it (reflected power, VSWR, etc.), not to mention system performance.

Matt

I suspect that the colorant in ABS is carbon black.

Make sure there is little to no carbon content, which would seriously alter antenna and system performance. BLACK anything -- including plastics -- is usually the worst, as they often have high carbon content. Think of applying black paint with carbon in it as applying very thin, black tin foil. Would you do that? Of course not. It would be both a shield and reflector, both of which are bad for the antenna (shield), the system connected to it (reflected power, VSWR, etc.), not to mention system performance.

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

Have you tried swapping the two antennas? If the bad performance moves, you have a bad antenna or a bad mount. I have seen two antenna failures in my club; one a club glider, one a privately-owned glider. If you have an OGN receiver nearby, you can use "Glidertracker" to see your received power at the antennna (this is how I diagnose bad FLARMs, and also use a known good antenna to test the antennas); (click on your glider icon, a window pops up showing info including received signal strength at the receiver. In each failure, the power at our OGN station was 20 db lower on the bad antennas (OEM), about 50m away). I have saved shipping two FLARMs for unnecessary diagnosis by discovering bad antennas. Antennas are cheap, and they sometimes arrive dead, or break, particularly if they are often touched/handled/'twanged'. Link for Glidertracker is https://glidertracker.org/#lat=1105585&lon=6428048&z=5 . You can zoom it to your area. OGN stations are inexpensive and very useful for crew wondering how their pilot is doing.

I use long antennas ($20 each) on foam blocks:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tg8GHbnkDu3Lj7t78

Range:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12rM...w?usp=drivesdk

Installing a short antenna next to a conductive item about the size of the antenna can interfere with the antenna performance. I attached a short antenna diagonally on a steel tube in a towplane and got abysmal performance.

Oh yes,

Looking at your antenna in the bracket, the lead runs parallel to the antenna when it should run at a 90° angle directly away from the dipole.

You really need to carefully read: FTD-041Â*Application Note FLARM Antenna Installation

https://flarm.com/wp-content/uploads...stallation.pdf