Today's Message Index:
----------------------
1. 04:37 AM - Aircraft Radio Station License ()
2. 07:20 AM - Re: Matronics list attachments / enclosures (Dennis Glaeser)
3. 07:52 AM - Re: Ground power cart protection (Dave Saylor)
4. 12:19 PM - Re: Ground power cart protection (Robert L. Nuckolls, III)
5. 02:15 PM - ICOM A 210 matched with a Flightcom 403 intercom (gordon)
6. 03:38 PM - Re: Com antenna (N81JG@aol.com)
7. 05:38 PM - Re: Com antenna (Robert L. Nuckolls, III)
Message 1
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| Subject: | Aircraft Radio Station License |
6/9/2010
Hello Again Fellow Builders and Pilots of Experimental Amateur Built
Aircraft, This is a follow up to my prior rant about the poor quality of the
"Expert Panel" article entitled "Ramp Check!" on page 16 of the May 2010
issue of Sport Aviation magazine.
In that prior rant I discussed the article's erroneous implication that
experimental amateur built aircraft were required to have an Airplane Flight
Manual on board when operating. The EAA (Joe Norris) has agreed to publish a
correction to the article. (Let me know if you want the particulars of my
prior rant.)
This posting is about the article's erroneous statement, without any
qualification, that the ramp inspector would want to see "some specific
documents" including the aircraft's radio station license.
Here is a web site that you can go to in order to check out the validity of
the article's statement regarding the requirement for an aircraft's radio
station license:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_06/47cfr87_06.html
Here are extracts of the pertinent elements from that site:
"(b) An aircraft station is licensed by
rule and does not need an individual license
issued by the FCC if ....skip..... the aircraft station does not make
international flights or communications."
See below for more from this section of the FCC regulations.
'OC' Baker Says: "The best investment we can make is the time and effort to
gather and understand knowledge."
=====================================================
87.18 Station license required.
(a) Except as noted in paragraph (b)
of this section, stations in the aviation
service must be licensed by the FCC either
individually or by fleet.
(b) An aircraft station is licensed by
rule and does not need an individual license
issued by the FCC if the aircraft
station is not required by statute, treaty,
or agreement to which the United
States is signatory to carry a radio,
and the aircraft station does not make
international flights or communications.
Even though an individual license
is not required, an aircraft station
licensed by rule must be operated
in accordance with all applicable operating
requirements, procedures, and
technical specifications found in this
part.
Message 2
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| Subject: | Re: Matronics list attachments / enclosures |
I had originally set up my access that way (years ago, when I started building),
but the volume of email was daunting, especially when subscribed to multiple
lists, and I wanted to see everything of course. Didn't really want/need that
much stuff on my hard drive, so I opted for the Web browser instead. The BBS
forum didn't come until later and my habit was already formed, so I didn't switch,
and basically forgot about it!
Dennis
retasker(at)optonline.net wrote:
> I have found that I much prefer to just have the emails forwarded to my
> own email account. Then I set up filters to automatically move them to
> the appropriate email folder (in this case "Aeroelectric").
>
> Attachments get forwarded just fine and I can read the email whenever I
> want - including when I am not even connected to the internet (assuming
> that I have downloaded the email already). It also gives me the
> capability to search on my own computer for older posts.
>
> My $0.02.
>
> Dick Tasker
Do not archive
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=300808#300808
Message 3
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| Subject: | Re: Ground power cart protection |
Hi Bob,
That's along the right lines, but what I'm trying to accomplish is to make
my 24V APU cart a little safer by having it shut off if it's connected to a
12V system. If every plane had this "real" APU circuit, we could just plug
24V into anything and let the system take care of itself. Unfortunately, a
lot of the planes we see aren't so well thought out. It's just a matter of
time until something gets damaged.
Any other ideas? I've tried labeling the cart, posting warnings, educating
everyone who uses the cart...I think I need a hardware solution.
When 24V goes into a 12V battery, what would happen on the cart side of the
system that could be measured to set off an alarm, trip a breaker, etc?
Seems tricky because sometimes a 24V battery drops low enough to seem like
12V, but it happily soaks up the input. Then you don't want the alarm. I
don't know enough about how a battery behaves to know what to look for.
Dave Saylor
AirCrafters
140 Aviation Way
Watsonville, CA 95076
831-722-9141 Shop
831-750-0284 Cell
On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 10:31 PM, Robert L. Nuckolls, III <
nuckolls.bob@aeroelectric.com> wrote:
> nuckolls.bob@aeroelectric.com>
>
> At 07:12 PM 6/9/2010, you wrote:
>
>> Is there a simple circuit to install on a ground power cart that will shut
>> off a 24V source when connected to a 12V system? Something like
>> "under-voltage crowbar protection"?
>>
>
> Hi Dave, long time no hear!
>
> This will probably work for you . . .
>
> http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/grndpwr.pdf
>
>
> Bob . . .
>
>
Message 4
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| Subject: | Re: Ground power cart protection |
At 09:43 AM 6/10/2010, you wrote:
>Hi Bob,
>
>That's along the right lines, but what I'm trying to accomplish is
>to make my 24V APU cart a little safer by having it shut off if it's
>connected to a 12V system. If every plane had this "real" APU
>circuit, we could just plug 24V into anything and let the system
>take care of itself. Unfortunately, a lot of the planes we see
>aren't so well thought out. It's just a matter of time until
>something gets damaged.
>
>Any other ideas? I've tried labeling the cart, posting warnings,
>educating everyone who uses the cart...I think I need a hardware solution.
Opps . . . NOW I understand . . . I'll need to think
about it some . . .
>When 24V goes into a 12V battery, what would happen on the cart side
>of the system that could be measured to set off an alarm, trip a
>breaker, etc? Seems tricky because sometimes a 24V battery drops
>low enough to seem like 12V, but it happily soaks up the
>input. Then you don't want the alarm. I don't know enough about
>how a battery behaves to know what to look for.
Yup, that's the phenomenon to understand and THEN
to design hardware that operates reliably based on
that understanding.
Obviously, the initial connection current demands
of 24 volt cart connected to a 12 volt battery
are high and do not fall off quickly (unless the
ship's battery is in REALLY bad shape). There's
also a concern for whether or not the ground power
cart can be connected to the ship's battery and
the connection evaluated BEFORE any ship's hardware
is powered up.
This illustrates my preference for (1) having
a ground power contactor that (2) feeds ground
power directly to the battery upstream of the
battery contactor.
Unfortunately, when you walk up to an airplane
with a ground power connector on it, there's NO
standard way to be sure that they're all wired
this way . . . in fact, most small aircraft have
NO ground power contactor.
MY airplane's ground power contactor would be
placarded for the requested ground power voltage,
but placards do run against the grain of builders
who spent a LOT of time on a slick paint job.
At first blush, I don't see a totally automatic
way to resolve the question . . . but you can
probably do some things to reduce risk. For
example, you could add a "test" contactor in
series with the power cart output cable and
place a power resistor across the contacts.
Something on the order of 1/2 ohm seems appropriate.
A voltmeter or sensing module downstream of
this resistor can test behavior of the ship's
electrical system when connected to 24 volt
source with a high source impedance. If it's
a 24 volt airplane, the downstream side would
quickly rise above 18 volts (a few seconds)
even if the ship's battery were super-flat.
Now, this assumes that the ship's battery is
on line before ground power is applied. Some
airplanes put ground power to the ship's bus
and if the battery is really dead, dead, dead,
you can't even get the battery contactor
to close. The idea would be to short out the
series resistor after it was deduced that
it was REALLY a 24 volt aircraft.
I'm not seeing a process that relieves the pilot
and ground power cart operator of understanding
reacting to what can be observed. There's just
a whole lot of variables. I'll think about it
some more. If anyone on the list has some ideas,
I would be useful to hear them.
Bob . . .
Message 5
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| Subject: | ICOM A 210 matched with a Flightcom 403 intercom |
Bob: Ten days or so ago you answered my question about the ability
for these 2 to work together. I have installed both, and one thing I am
not sure of is that when doing to the menu and setting the volume on
the transciever, I am not able then after getting out of menu to do
any changing to volume except to use the volume controls on my Lightspeed
headsets. The volume control on the Flightcom 403 works to control volume
just between my passenger and I guess thats how its supposed to be.
I called ICOM tec but got a man in an office that doesn't seem too knowledgeable
and said that is probably how its done. He suggested to
go to menu and set volume all the way up and then control volume with
headset controls. he said a Tec would call but hasn't yet. Do you think
that is how they are to work together. On my old Val 760 and using
the same Flightcom I could dial in volume any time on the Val and
if too loud for my passenger, they could turn it down themselves on
the head set control. Thanks Gordon[list=][/list]
--------
tailwind10
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=300881#300881
Message 6
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Thanks much Bob for the explanation. It looks like the radial base may be
my best bet for coming close to a standard aircraft cats-whisker antenna. I
will try that first and I can lay it out on the outer skin and measure the
SWR for confirmation of the efficiency before I install it in the foam. I
will also see how different the SWR will be between the outer surface and
inside the foam. I will report back.
John Greaves
In a message dated 6/9/2010 9:25:27 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
nuckolls.bob@aeroelectric.com writes:
At 11:17 AM 6/9/2010, you wrote:
HI Bob,
Thanks for your replies. I have one question on the dipole with several
radial base wires. That would be easy to set up, but I don't understand why I
could ditch the toroids at the end of the coax.
They don't really do much unless they're of a material
appropriate to the operating frequency and then only
when they add significant inductance to the currents
flowing in the shield.
Since inductance is proportional to the square of
the turns, you need 9 toroids on the coax (nine
series connected inductors of 1-turn each) to equal
1 toroid with three turns of coax wound through
the center. Take the miracle whip "can" apart
and you'll find a single core with multiple turns
through it.
The idea was to improve the interface between an
unbalanced feeder (coax) and a balanced antenna (dipole)
but it takes quite a few of the RIGHT toroid to do
the best job . . . and tens of thousands of airplanes
have successfully fed balanced VOR cat-whiskers
at the top of the vertical fin with coax and NO
toroids for decades.
Does the balance of the coax and dipole work out due to many ground
radials or does the arrangement turn the antenna into a simple base loaded 1/4
wave whip? I assume the latter is what happens. Would the base on only the
wing side of the vertical element make it quite directional or not
significantly directional?
Correct. Adding radials to the "base" of a single
vertical makes it an unbalanced antenna that more
closely approximates a ground plane. And yes,
it's radiation patter will not be 'round' but
if it's more efficient, a few bumps in the radiation
plot may not matter. Having say 4 radials at the
base make the sum total of their radiation resistance
1/4th that of the vertical radiator. This makes
the radiator do it's magic with the majority of
energy arriving at the end of the feedline.
Further, the antenna is now decidedly unbalanced
and the toroids are no longer suggested . . .
although they were of limited value in the first
place. A coax balun does a better job but also narrows
the bandwidth of the system. A broadband balun has
a wider bandwidth but adds its own losses.
1/4 wave comm antennas over ground planes have
been doing a really good job on viritually EVERY
radio equipped airplane since the Lear LTRA6
and Narco VT1 radios gave voice to little GA
aircraft in the 50's.
I think you the highest probability for success
lies in getting as close to that configuration
as the layout of your winglet allows. The more
radials the better. 4 is enough and 8 is
probably not practical.
Bob . . .
(http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List)
(http://www.matronics.com/contribution)
Message 7
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At 05:31 PM 6/10/2010, you wrote:
>Thanks much Bob for the explanation. It looks like the radial base
>may be my best bet for coming close to a standard aircraft
>cats-whisker antenna. I will try that first and I can lay it out on
>the outer skin and measure the SWR for confirmation of the
>efficiency before I install it in the foam. I will also see how
>different the SWR will be between the outer surface and inside the
>foam. I will report back.
Good show! Inquiring minds want to know . . .
Get a plot over the whole comm range.
Bob . . .
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