Paul,
I tried temporarily mounting the antenna on top of the instrument panel as
well, with the same poor results, i.e. low signal strength. It wasn't
obvious what in the panel (below the antenna) was causing the problem.
The GPS did work for most circumstances with the antenna in the top of the
panel, but with marginal signal strength, as it turned out. Then one day in
a flight over the mountains, in smoke from forest fires, it lost
acquisition, just when I really felt the need for a GPS. The smoke from
fires hundreds of miles away had blown to the top of the California Central
Valley and collected there, making the smoke very heavy right at the
Northern edge of the valley. I lost sight of both ground and sky for 5-10
minutes. I was flying on the Navaid auto-pilot at the time, slaved to the
GPS. It was just after entering the heavy smoke that the GPS crapped out,
forcing me to switch the auto-pilot to wing leveler mode. I first tried
climbing over it, hesitant to descend towards the now unseen mountains. At
11,500 feet I still couldn't see the sky. Fortunately, I had a hand held
GPS backup that I was able to use to determine when I was clear of the
mountains and able to descend low enough to regain sight of the ground. I
probably could have made it without a GPS, estimating my position by compass
and time, but it was comforting the have the GPS tell me when I was over
Redding, on the floor of the valley.
regards,
Terry Seaver
Paul Atkinson wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 5, 2002, at 05:02 pm, Terry Seaver wrote:
>
> > Paul,
> >
> > I initially mounted the Skymap antenna in the top, inside, of the
> > instrument panel. After losing signal on several flights, I found that
> > the GPS did not like the antenna above the instruments/radios in the
> > panel. I moved it to the overhead area between the doors (inside the
> > plane) and have had no trouble since.
> >
> > Terry Seaver
> > A135 / N135TD
> >
> Thanks for that Terry. I don't know if it will be any better on top
> rather than inside, but I won't be cutting any wire until I have carried
> out further experiments. Were you able to tell what equipment was
> affecting it?
>
> Paul
>
> paul@theatkinsons.demon.co.uk
>
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