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RV-14 and Dual GA-35 GPS Antennas

bkervaski

Hellloooooooo!
Testing
I ended up with two GA-35 antennas and one of the generic garmin GPS antennas (https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/1467).

On my RV-14 I'd like to mount the two GA-35 antennas opposite each other on the forward top tailcone (where typically builders have mounted just one on the left or right side of center).

I know there needs to be 3-6 inches between the two per the book, but looking for advice as I read an alarming thread about GA-35 failures and now wondering if the generic GPS antenna might be a better choice as the second.

One GA-35 is connected to a GTN-625, the second antenna, whichever I mount, will be connected tot he G3X Touch.

Thanks for any advice/recommendations!
 
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Bill - the GA35 isn't a "bad" antenna. Garmin sticks to their belief the "bad" ones that acted as GPS jammers were made bad through excessive torque applied to their mounting screws. So... watch those screw torques!

There's an up-side to having two GA35's installed, and, if it were my aircraft I likely would install two of them rather than one GA35 and one "generic". That up-side is the ability to keep your WAAS navigator functioning should one antenna fail. Simply swap the coax cable from one antenna to the other. Not sure how your panel will be built but having the capacity to do that swap behind the panel rather than crawling into the tail would certainly be nice. To that end, in our aircraft I have short stubs of coax on each radio rack connector, terminated in a female bulkhead connector. This allows me to move the male connector on the end of the coax cables to whichever radio I wish. Pretty handy and can be done for the entire radio stack for less than $100.
 
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