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Artex 345 ELT antenna

jump4way

Well Known Member
There is about a bazillion elt antenna placement threads but I haven?t had any luck finding the answer to this question..

Has anyone come up with a decent way to mount the Artex 345 ELT antenna in the tail section beneath the empennage fairing or found a suitable replacement antenna for an RV-8?

I?m curious how the rubber ducky antenna for Icom handhelds works in real life as well if anyone has any experience?

Thanks for any help.
 
Andy - if you do a bit of searching around on this forum you'll find a few discussions concerning ELT's and what does and what does not constitute an ELT installation which meets the requirements of the FARs. I'll try to save you a few steps here by providing an abridged answer.

The ONLY antennas approved for use with your ELT are those antennas listed in the approved installation or operator's manual for your ELT. NO OTHER antenna is approved, period. There's no wiggle room on this topic. Use of something other than the approved antenna will result in an ELT installation which does not meet the TSO requirement, thus does not meet the requirements of the FARs governing ELT carriage. Unlike many components installed in amateur-built aircraft, the ELT is one of the few devices which MUST be TSO'd.
 
Thanks for the reply. I?ve been searching a bit more since my original post and it really seems there is no way to comply with the manufacturers instructions on mounting the antenna on an rv-8.

The best solution to me seems to be putting it under the empennage fairing but the antenna is too long.

I could do the aft armrest on in the passenger seat which does a decent job of getting it out of the way inside the cabin but I honestly don?t think that is a very useful place for an antenna.

Any suggestions are welcomed.
 
Mine is mounted on the right side of the fuselage at the aft end of the passenger armrest with the antenna curving up around the turtle deck bulkhead. It's held there with small nylon adel-type clamps and it's not that noticeable. I copied the Redline installation on their two new RV8's they are building for their airshows.
 
Consider adding a small mounting bracket just forward or the last fuselage full rib (the one just forward of the eppenagge). You can then gain the needed inch or so to mount the antenna under the eppennage fairing. The small part that would be inside the fuselage (a little of the white plastic part) will have little effect on antenna performace.

On and RV-8, unless you mount the antenna in front of the windshield you will not meet the manufacture?s mounting requirement. Any practical mounting will be a compromise. I offer that the protection to the antenna provided by the tail structure is well worth the trade off. Having an ELT antenna any place where it might easily break off or end up under the plane if it flips over, negates the reason you have the ELT in the first place.

I had the old style ELT antenna under the eppennage fairing in the old RV-8A and it worked well. I put the new style antenna under the fairing in the RV-10 as well - but it had just a little more room for this longer antenna. On the new RV-8 project I?ll do as I discribed above.

Carl
 
Those are both great suggestions. I had not thought of using a bracket to extend the elt antenna a couple of inches deeper in to the fuselage. I’ll take a look at that today. I do have my gmu-11 mounted abut midway between those aft two bulkheads. I wonder if extending that antenna in would cause interference?
 
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