Shorter aerial

[marioair]

Is it possible to buy the half length aerial mentioned in the installation guide or do we just cut the one supplied to size?

[exfirepro]

Hi marioair,

Which antenna on which installation guide are you talking about? I presume you are talking about the thin steel whip which was supplied for the 1090MHz side of the original PAW ‘Classic’ - which was ‘technically’ over-length - as this is the only PilotAware antenna that you can ‘cut down to size’.

If you are talking about that one, you can carefully remove the end cap (it can be pulled off with a bit of effort) and the spring steel whip can then be cut in half (technically to a length of 69mm measured from the base of the mount) with a strong pair of pliers or wire cutters - but be careful and watch your eyes, the cut end goes off like a bullet !! The end cap can then be glued back onto the cut end.

The antennas supplied with Rosetta are already pre-tuned and cannot be adjusted.

Regards

Peter

[marioair]

Hello
Yes that’s the one I mean. The measurement is from the point where the whip enters the base or from “table top” level?
Is there any benefit of getting the New style one?

[exfirepro]

Technically, the measurement is from the point where the coax inner leaves the coax outer inside the base, but in practice that’s pretty much the same as from the ‘table top’ to the top of the whip.

As this side is receive only and the 1090MHz signals are all significantly higher power than the P3i side, the measurement is extremely ‘uncritical’.

If you wan’t to read more about it, I’d suggest this historic thread from 2016....

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,438.0.html

Regards

Peter

[marioair]

Thanks.
So just to be clear you don’t cut the whip in half based on the viable length of the whip, but cut it so the measure from the table to the tip is 68.9mm?

[exfirepro]

@marioair,

If you want to be accurate, that is correct, though as I have said, in view of the high strength of received signals from 1090MHz transmitters, most users are probably not that pedantic.

(Not a criticism - just a statement of fact.)

Regards

Peter