On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 16:31:45 -0500, Dave Holford
wrote:



Frank Dresser wrote:

"A.Pismo Clam" wrote in message
...
Hello All!
snip

The thought occurs to me that in the "good old days" aircraft used to
have wire antennas, either strung around the airframe or trailing below
and behind.

Some still do


Modern, high speed, aircraft can't do this so they have various
solutions including HF probes and conformal antennas (I have seen
unpainted panels on some large military aircraft which were identified
as HF antennas) and it is not difficult to receive their signals over
distances of several thousand miles. I wonder why no one has, at least
as far as I am aware, attempted to adapt these solutions to Ham Radio?

The aircraft has a height above Terrain (HAT) advantage that few homes
are ever going to obtain. :-))


I have personal experience, some 40 years ago, with an HF antenna which
consisted of the top half of the tail (about a 15 to 20 foot square
metal surface) which was tuned by a remote ATU (Collins CU-351 ISTR) and
performed at least as well as a fixed wire over the range of 2.5 to 30
MHz. I had considered at one time covering one end of the house with
foil and trying the idea against ground, but for some reason I
encountered some opposition from another member of my household. I think
she figured 15 antennas was enough!

Then there is the problem of electrical wiring on the inside of the
wall too. :-))

The plane I'm building (335 MPH hot rod) is all advanced composite.
The plans call for the antennas to all be inside. Unfortunately the
VOR antenna is supposed to be in the horizontal stabilizer. They
changed the material so the horizontal stab is all carbon fiber.
Wellll...maybe it'd be good for deicing.

You'll have to fix the return add due to dumb virus checkers, not spam
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair?)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Dave
VE3HLU