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Handheld comm question

Paul 5r4

Well Known Member
I have only one comm in my 7A. I do have a hand held I carry with me with each flight just in case of a comm failure. I've never tried it with ATC. I'm thinking the range in the cockpit will not be very good. I've been thinking of installing a second antenna on the belly with the coax run inside in such a way I could hook it to the handheld if needed. Can I even do this and would this make any significant differences in the range/quality of what ATC might hear from my transmissions.
 
The short answers are yes and yes.

Handheld rubber ducky antennas are one step up from a dummy load.

Now add a power connection and adapter to plug in your headset and you will have a functional backup radio.

Carl
 
I've been thinking of installing a second antenna on the belly with the coax run inside in such a way I could hook it to the handheld if needed.

This will make a huge difference in the performance of your hand-held. Here is a source of excellent antennae at a reasonable price:

http://www.deltapopaviation.com/VHF_Com_Antennas.html

DSC01755_1.jpg


I have one of these antennas on my RV-6 and have been very pleased with it.
 
Yes!

Yes, with a externally mounted antenna it will most like work just as well as your panel radio.

I use to fly a Rans S12xl experimental and used a hand held radio hooked to a bent whip and aircraft power as my main radio, I could receive and transmit better then most the GA aircraft around. This is the one I used: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/comant122.php
 
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Thanks everyone!
Carl, that's a great idea too... think I'll look into that.
Sam, I have the bent antenna now and works great. If I don't go with Jim's idea.... I'd go with the same.
Jim, Thank you for your thoughts. That would work too and save me some cash. Only thing I was thinking was to have a back up antenna in case for some reason the other quit working or hit by a bird etc etc.

LOVE VAF and happily a $$$ supporter!
 
...
Handheld rubber ducky antennas are one step up from a dummy load.
..
Carl

Interesting. In my old RV-3 I only had a handheld Icom mounted so the rubber ducky stuck up over the front/left canopy bow. Don't recall having a problem with it. Flew in Tampa Class B airspace.

Finn
 
Finn, If you're close in it would be fine. When I'm doing a cross country I most always use flight following. If I lost comm in the middle of no where I wonder if my handheld with nothing but it's own antenna would work. I have no idea what the range of a handheld is using it's own antenna. Wonder if anyone's every experimented to find out.
 
Finn, If you're close in it would be fine. When I'm doing a cross country I most always use flight following. If I lost comm in the middle of no where I wonder if my handheld with nothing but it's own antenna would work. I have no idea what the range of a handheld is using it's own antenna. Wonder if anyone's every experimented to find out.

Effective range will depend on a bunch of variables. Don't trust the rubber ducky for dependable communication in an emergency.
 
The external antenna works great, but just as important is a headset adapter. In my experience, yelling into the mike then holding the speaker up to your ear is about as effective as jettisoning the canopy and screaming out the open windscreen to the tower! Be sure to try out your handheld setup before you really need it. Also either have spare batteries or better yet, plug into ship power.
 
Jim, Thanks for the link to the handheld radio test by sports. Excellent article. I believe another external antenna and headset adapter are in the near future. Again, thanks to everyone for the excellent information and advice.
 
I'm using my handheld Yaesu FT-550AA as my ONLY radio in my little (tiny) Sonerai IIL. It has a bubble canopy, similar to the RV-4.

I clip it to the steel canopy cross member with the belt clip, with the radio/whip antenna vertical. It works fine. I do a radio check occasionally and its always "loud & clear".

Handhelds depend on contact, with either a human body, or other large area conductive structure, and a vertically positioned antenna for good operation.

The bigger problem with handhelds carried in a flight bag for "emergencies" is that they're always dead when you need them. I recommend a good DC "cigarette-lighter" plug and some practice using it under actual conditions.
 
I have a Sportys PJ2 handheld COM radio. The best thing about it is that it has standard jacks to plug your headset in directly. Also has a power cable to power it from a USB receptacle in your plane, conserving battery power. I would like to have some sort of splitter to split the signal from the primary radio antenna in case my primary COM quits, so I could use the antenna for my handheld. An antenna switch box was mentioned before, but the link to it doesn?t work. If some sort of switch box exists, I?d like to check it out. The rubber antenna works OK, but probably doesn?t have much range. I?ve never needed the handheld in flight, or even my COM 2 when I had one, so I?m comfortable with my single GTR 200B COM and my handheld. I no longer fly IFR, so it?s much different than you guys looking for space-X level redundancy.
 
Effective range will depend on a bunch of variables.

This is strongly supported in my experience at our glider club. Lots of different handhelds in use (with and w/o external antennas) in lots of gliders (aluminum and composite). Range varies from as little as a couple hundred yards on the ground to sometimes as much as 15 miles in the air (but only rarely more than that).

The old KX-155 in the towplane has (far) better performance than the best handheld, and is often called upon to relay radio calls.

Also, it is generically (but not universally) true that reception range is better than transmission range ... i.e. You can hear from farther away than you can be heard.

Good batteries and a proper external antenna can provide close to installed radio performance (many handhelds claim 5W TX power, and many panel radios are 6W). If you can effectively radiate anything close to 5W, you will be heard from a long way. The installation details matter however.

Peter
 
During my phase 1 I had COM issues with the Dynon radio. While those issues were getting sorted out I bought a Yaesu handheld. It came with the power adapter and headset adapter. You have to go into the menus to configure the headset adapter, but then you can plug into it with your headset and talk/hear just fine. I used it both with the external com antenna and the rubber antenna. The external one was much better. I now have dual external antennas on the airplane (added another prior to painting) and the second antenna has a longer section of coax that can reach a handheld (normally it is just coiled up under the panel). The only issue is remembering not to use the PTT button on the stick!
 
Thanks for the info Bruce! I have the Yaesu FT550. It came with the headset adapter but I didn't know I'll need to configure it in the menu! I've ordered an antenna from Delta Pop aviation as recommended. RG 400 order will be placed Monday as well as a couple connectors. Looking forward to trying it out when complete.
 
DIY

...If some sort of switch box exists, I’d like to check it out....

I think that box was based on a Kitplanes article by Jim Weir.

Simple to make yourself, although I wince at that jack connector to the handheld radio. Instead use a simple SPDT mini switch and BNC connectors and keep the wires as short as possible between BNC connectors and the switch tabs. Note that you only need to switch the center conductors, not the shields. Good contact between three BNC connectors and the small metal box. The center tab on the switch to the antenna BNC and the two outer tabs to the radio BNCs.

You could even use a DPDT mini switch and have a 50 ohm resistor as a dummy load for the radio not connected to the antenna. Some radios do not like a missing antenna (if accidentally transmitting on the radio not connected to the antenna).

In other words, a BNC from a radio is either switched to the antenna or to the 50 ohm dummy load. There the two center tabs on the switch would go to the radio BNCs. The outer tabs (criss-crossed) would go to antenna and to 50 ohm resistor to ground (metal box).

If interested I can can draw up a schematic.

(However I would not try to use it with transponders, big difference of what you can get away with at 118-136MHz and at 1 Ghz.)

Finn
 
You know, I've been planning for some time to have a single radio and a handheld for backup, with that ICOM switch box...but the more I read and think about it, the more I'm leaning towards just having a second antenna and a normally-disconnected coax cable tucked away somewhere.
 
Philip.... I agree with you. The switch box and a single antenna are fine too but I was interested in redundancy. A second radio, handheld with it's own electrical power, battery, and it's own coax to a separate antenna. Yes, I like that. I lost an alternator 100 miles from home last fall and flew home with the master switch off. For the trip home I used my stratux with a battery pack for situational/weather/traffic awareness AND my iPhone was providing the same information. Now... if I'd had my handheld with me hooked to external antenna the event would have been pretty much a non-event.
 
Initial results for handheld comm radio flight test

Hey Everyone. Finally got a chance to get the new external antenna installed. New RG 400 coax run that ends just to left of the left seat. Easy inflight reach to hook up handheld if needed. The yaesu FTA-550 has a peak 5.0 Watt transmission signal. (As a comparison, The Garmin SL 40 in the panel has 8 Watts. So the handheld has 37% less transmit power).

I've done a couple of flight tests with my Yaesu FTA-550 hooked to the external antenna and here are my thoughts. I was most interested in the range and quality of my transmissions using the underbelly mounted antenna. I didn't attempt any transmissions with the rubber duck antenna.

First test flight: I'm testing with my headset plugged into the handheld and using external mic setting so i can talk into my headset. Only thing is to remember to use the PTT on the handheld. At about 2500 feet, The longest range I got was 42 miles. The Mobile airport tower said my transmissions were about 4 out of 5. I wondered if Mobile tower had some kind of remote communication antenna. Pensacola tower was 28 miles and I never could raise them.

Second test flight: I was able to raise Pensacola tower this time. Distance was 22 miles with altitude of 2500. She said I was weak but readable. I spoke with another airborne aircraft which was about 20 miles away and he said I was loud and clear.

Random calls didn't get me lots of responses so I plan to do a few more tests with someone at my FBO stationed at the radio! Should yield more consistent and accurate conclusions. With the experience I have now, I feel the radio will work well as long as I'm under 20 miles with sufficient altitude. I don't think it will help much in the middle of nowhere using flight following. Within 15 miles of a terminal area I'm feeling it will perform well. Overall I'm feeling like the external antenna was a good move. More test to follow.
 
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