Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA
| Ah; the old "carbon fiber causes rf interference" story rears it's ugly head again. This one has been around for a loooonnnggg time, and pops up every now and then.
winger, here's a little tip for assigning credibility to these old saws, wive's tales, whatever you want to call 'em. Ask why. Somebody says carbon rotor blades will degrade the performance of a base-load antenna? Okay; why? HOW does it happen? If you can't get a sensible explanation, then take that for what it is worth.
I have been hearing this particular one for over ten years. Some people I have a great deal of respect for believe it. But I have yet to hear a sensible explanation on how carbon fiber interferes with radio signals, servo operation, or any of the other electronic ills it is supposedly responsible for.
I have had three helicopters with full carbon fiber frame sets; two of them had c/f blades, and ALL of them had Revolution base load whips. Yup, you guessed it; not the first rf problem on any of them.
You don't want to run a wire antenna along the boom, regardless of it's composition; bad juju. Other than that, a regular wire antenna will work with c/f frames as well as plastic or metal. A properly wired and installed Revolution whip will do just as well.
The question of diminished range on base load whips comes up. When I started helos, I was told to use the Dean's whip. I did not, because I knew better than the guy who was teaching me about helicopters. I had all this plank experience, see, and I wasn't about to put some Mickey Mouse POS like that on MY $1000 investment.
After the second time I stepped on the dangling wire antenna end and damaged it, I decided that perhaps my mentor knew something I didn't about radio antennas. But I was concerned about range, so, after I cut the rx wire and attached the whip, I mounted the rx in an old Ugly Stik that was my radio/engine test bed and all-around experimental model. I flew it out to the limit of my vision, which at that time, with that model, was what I estimate to be a quarter mile. Curtis Youngblood regularly flies his machine so high that most folks require binoculars to see it.
The moral of that story is that, while a whip may indeed reduce the rx's effective range, I just don't think one can get a helicopter model far enough away (assuming a properly tuned and functioning system) to "lose" the signal. My opinion; YMMV.
Steve |
