Radio problem.

[Kyle Communications]

Glen

 

If I get any given to me I will send them down to you...your a glutton for punishment 🙂

 

Make the radio a box with a small 2/14 head as not a lot of dash space with some of these panels now or 2 ipads in the dash. The MGL V16 is pretty good its a semi DSP style radio it has the chassis you mount somewhere then just uses a CAN bus for the display head. it works pretty well I have been using one here on the test bench for a while it is going into my RANS S-21 with MGL EFIS full autopilot etc. The V16 comes up on the Efis display but I also got the Vega head so i can still have "knob" control.

[RFguy]

Hi Mark

yeah there seems to be alot of EFIS integration. Certainly makes panel space easier.

 

2" and a 1/4 is hard. (60mm square beyond). I see alot of radios have 2 1/4" mount but a box elsehwere. 

 

I have Icom 200, 210s Tray types etc  various Dittel, Becker etc

 

My current SDRs are 73mm width PCB . wouldnt be a big deal to get them down to 50mm. (lose the fibre interfaces, linux) , although I imagine the CAN bus remote radios are in a little aluminium box 'elsewhere ' ?

 

 

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

V16  with the head and box..hope this link works

 

https://www.facebook.com/mark.kyle.980/videos/10223583214233579/

[RFguy]

ahh ok. I get the picture. That's how. still not much room to work with for displays, unless one used a projection onto a large screen and chewed up unused panel space next to it. 

 

the other size are 3" holes, ? But see less and less of those with EFIS creeping in . 

 

BTW I bought an Uavionix AV30. will advise when i get it installed. Also have a SkyEcho. there is another forum topic  on that.

[RFguy]

@ Arron25
I was thinking ,for that airplane, to fit the quad (or rather, a  full wave loop of any convenient shape) (and remember for vertical polarization feed from the side, not the bottom like an HPOL HF quad) , ....the antenna is probably going to be quite close to you (IE where the fuselage is big enough to accommodate the quad) , and as Mark says will  get into your headphones, electronics etc.

 

You could screen the cabin area with a wire net, a mesh or copper or ally, or zinc . (or a fabric mesh that is impregnated, or a gal steel  wire coarse mesh. (Gal) Zinc is good.

But then an RF screen is going to handicap your signal going in that direction! no good. 

 

The holes (apertures)  should be no larger than 1/16" of a wavelength to be effective.  (2500/16) IE about 150mm squares would be OK.

 

Composite  (fibreglass) planes and radio are hard. Jab's approach with the half wave dipole in the fin was probably the best simple solution for that plane.

 

Composite (CARBON) planes and radio are hard also, but different.  The carbon is fairly conductive and antennas must again go on the outside.

 

Another solution might be a DDRR. Look it up.Small- but bandwidth is narrow, though. That's the problem for this application. If you only use one CTAF, that's fine I guess.

 

It is very hard to beat the quarter wave whip on the outside, sitting on a mounting plate (for strength and load spreading)   with antenna base , and 4 x 600mm  x 1" wide lengths of adhesive copper tape coming out in four directions (under the composite on the inside.

-glen

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by RFguy

[skippydiesel]

Ground plane - My antenna is located under the rear fuselage.  Due to structural & space limitations, Longitudinally, I used a piece of flat aluminium strap, cant remember exactly how long, about 1.5 m X a bit wider than the base of the antenna and the minimal thickness from local metal merchant probably 1.5 mm. Drilled the necessary holes for securing screws and cable connection. - Horizontally, I used builders aluminium flashing which I molded and glued (silastic) to the curved sides of the rear fuselage, as far as I could go. Placed  a flat piece of aluminium (cut off the strap) on top to make a sandwich. System works better than expected - great reception/ transmission. Have been using this for the last 5 years or so.

[David Ames]

I am the next owner of a 2004 Savannah Classic.  It has a XCOM which works reasonably well.  I am having trouble with reception sound quality.  Is it a squelch value issue or another parameter? (the manual download does not match up with the menu)

Help?

David

[Kyle Communications]

Depends on what you are calling sound quality...is it distorted or crackly or not enough level or does it cut out intermittantly

 

You probaly dont want the squelch over 19 or 21 ..that will depend on a few things of course..

 

[Jabiru7252]

Squelch is confusing to non radio nerds. Some see it as a sort of 'sensitivity' control. It is not. All you do is set a threshold at a point so that background hash is blocked and radio transmissions are not. Any transmission that is 'above the background noise' will open the squelch and be heard. If weak transmissions from distant places are getting through, just wind up the squelch setting a tad. I fail to see how squelch will have an effect on audio quality. You could try a different head-set. If the quality is better, investigate your head-set.

[Thruster88]

Check the reception with engine off. We had a tecnam in the shop recently that did not have the required capacitor installed in the charging system. Easy fix thanks to reading about it on Recreational Flying.

[cscotthendry]

Something I discovered with my Nynja and I've had it in the Legend as well.

If you're running OzRunways on an iPad, make sure the wifi is turned off. If you have the iPad's wifi on and it is not linked to anything, it will drive the radio crazy unsquelching the receiver intermittently.

[Thruster88]

Using a device charger can also cause interference. 

[kgwilson]

Cheap power outlet USB ports are terrible for radio interference. Good quality ones don't interfere at all. Bluetooth connectivity doesn't seem to cause interference but WiFi does even though the frequency is miles away at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Bluetooth uses the 2.4GHz to 2.483 but is much lower power so it may be the WiFi signal strength that is the issue.

[RFguy]

alright.

 

Can you make a recording of it with your phone- hold the mic of the phone to your headset cup.

send it to me , please. If you are unsure if you have the volume right, send a few different volume levels.

 

different people have different ideas of 'hash' 'noise' 'hiss' 'whine' 'static'......

 

squelch works by detecting noise. the less noise there is, the more likely a signal is present.  It can get confused, or be confused. Some better radios also look for a thing called syllabic rate, they look for energy that has time variable statistics of speech