Antenna Length Optimization Recommendations

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:32:08 +0200, Willy VINKEN
wrote:


Paul,

The SWR should be as low as possible. Ideally 1:1 over the entire
aero-band. Which is pretty impossible for a 19 MHz span around 125
MHz.

Make that WAY impossible...;-)

When my partners and I bought our LS-4, the radio output was
miserable, so I hauled it home and dived in. Turned out the seller,
while he was an A&P, must have learned about radio from a CB magazine.
He had set out to get the best possible signal the same way a CB'er
might do it, by adding an antenna tuner. Of course, there weren't any
antenna tuners in the Wings & Wheels catalog, so he used one meant for
the AMATEUR TWO-METER BAND!

Now that unit had a tuning capacitor to adjust it to the operating
freq in a band 4 MHz wide, and it was hooked up to a signal 20 MHz
below its lower end...you can guess the results. Other operators had
to fiddle with their squelch to hear it in the pattern. And this guy
had flown with it for several years.

Ralph NY0F