Wingtip ADSB Antenna with Uavionix Echo UAT

[n85ae]

I put my stub antenna from Uavionix in my wingtip, and made a copper tape ground plane
and flew for a while. I noticed my ADSB reports were showing dropped packets, so I started
thinking why this might happen ..? My guess is that in a bank the ground plane masks the
stub from line of site with the towers. So having played a lot with a home made Stratux in
the past I knew about an antenna called a "ADSB Spider" (from google) so I fabricated
one of these as illustrated in the picture below, and peeled out all the copper ground plane
tape and replaced it.

Results - Much better adsb reports, and I see more traffic.

The spokes are 69mm long, and at about a 40-45 degree angle, it's simply thin copper tubing
that I had in the shop and it soldered forming a ring that goes under the nut and washer of
BNC connector.

The wood mount is not used, it is simply something I made to mount the antenna in the wingtip
when I first was testing it. I tossed it, and simply used the hole from the first version.

Jeff

Current version (which works well)


23664

Original Version - (Not good)

23665

[airlina]

Great tip Jeff , especially now that the mandate is upon us. I may add this simple upgrade to my already installed ADSB antenna based on your recommendation , thanks Bruce N199CL

[bbs428]

I like it! I'll tuck this away for use later. Timely post.

[Dave S]

Jeff,

Curious where you have your Echo box mounted; and, how the coax is run/routed between the monopole and echo ?

I couldn't figure that out from the original post.

[n85ae]

Everything is mounted on the end rib, and I
Powered off the Nav light power. Simple.

Jeff