finding old ADF equipment ... where ?

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hi folks

my first post to this group, i'm usually over on the sailing groups.
i've been learning a lot about navigation and i want to try some
experiments using RDF (radio direction finding). i was doing some
searches and found out that .. wow, of course .. airplanes used to use
this stuff too! and your equipment is really nice with small bearing
indicators actually showing which direction a transmitter is located in
instead of having to turn an antenna and that type of thing and watch a
strength meter.

so my question is ... besides ebay, where would i find something like
this ? i mean, is there a such thing as like an airplane junk yard ?
lol. besides a very few piloting lessons and plenty of rides as a
passenger i know ZERO about airplanes, so i have no idea where to look.
is there some kind of place around that's likely to have a surplus of
old equipment like this, maybe a place that refits airplanes with more
modern equipment ? reason i ask is i know this stuff is expensive new,
and even used, and frankly i don't want to pay for it, or pay very
little, because i'm just playing around with it.

thanks!

[Roy Smith]

In article . com>,
wrote:

> hi folks
>
> my first post to this group, i'm usually over on the sailing groups.
> i've been learning a lot about navigation and i want to try some
> experiments using RDF (radio direction finding). i was doing some
> searches and found out that .. wow, of course .. airplanes used to use
> this stuff too! and your equipment is really nice with small bearing
> indicators actually showing which direction a transmitter is located in
> instead of having to turn an antenna and that type of thing and watch a
> strength meter.
>
> so my question is ... besides ebay, where would i find something like
> this ? i mean, is there a such thing as like an airplane junk yard ?
> lol. besides a very few piloting lessons and plenty of rides as a
> passenger i know ZERO about airplanes, so i have no idea where to look.
> is there some kind of place around that's likely to have a surplus of
> old equipment like this, maybe a place that refits airplanes with more
> modern equipment ? reason i ask is i know this stuff is expensive new,
> and even used, and frankly i don't want to pay for it, or pay very
> little, because i'm just playing around with it.
>
> thanks!

If you're messing around in boats, you really want a Marine RDF. It's
fundamentally the same instrument, but a typical aviation unit isn't set up
to be convenient to use in a boat.

To start, an aviation unit will be two (or maybe even three) distinct
items, interconnected by wires. The radio itself will be one box, meant to
mount in the radio stack. The directional antenna will be another unit
meant to mount on the belly of the plane, and often the indicator head will
be yet a third piece meant to be mounted in the instrument cluster. Add to
that the fact that many aviation units are designed to run on a 28 volt
electrical system.

I bought one (a marine RDF) a bunch of years ago at a boat junk swap. I
think I paid $10 for it. Keep scrounging on eBay; one is sure to pop up
sooner or later.

[Jose]

> i mean, is there a such thing as like an airplane junk yard ?

Go to fly-ins (there's a really big one in Florida April 4-10 called
Sun'n'Fun, but smaller ones happen all the time). But you need to know
what you're buying, and whether it's really suitable for what you want.

Newer aviation units use 28 volts (or even 48 volts IIRC) but there are
older ones that use 12 volts. I don't know if the frequencies of the
marine transmitters are compatible with the aviation units.

Jose
--
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