Dennis

All kinds of things have worked that the theory says shouldn't. People used
to string tinfoil around a room to get better TV reception...Sometimes it
actually worked! But you have to strech antenna theory a bit to explain how.

Here is how the theory says it will work. Most things have "worked" for
someone. Your idea of insulating the foil on the outside of the carbon fiber
should not work very well.

I can't find a simple explaination of this on the web. It's not a simple
subject. It involves Electric fields and magnetic fields in space, In order
to propogate, they must be set up in a certain geometric arrangement.
http://www.chem.vt.edu/chem-ed/light/em-rad.html . That is what an antenna
does.

A ground plane has to be close to right angles to the antenna conductor.
One right behind the conductor will not work well at all, because it doesn't
allow the electric and magnetic fields to both be at right angles to each
other and to the direction of travel.

Having said that, it might be fun to try it, and measure the VSWR. You'll
find that it sucks!






"Dennis Mountains" wrote in message
...
I'm building a carbon fiber airplane and understand that the carbon is too
opaque to radio signals to use antennas inside the carbon. (The wing tips
are E-Glass and come with navigation antennas already installed.) For
communication, marker beacon, and transponder antennas, I'm wondering why
I
can't use a foil tape antenna kit to stick foil tape to the outside of the
fuselage skin somewhere on the belly and then cover it with a layer of
E-Glass to protect it? I could use the carbon as the ground plane or
build
one inside the fuselage, if the carbon isn't enough.

I heard from an expert that applying the foil directly to the
electrically
conductive carbon would be just as bad as applying it directly to
aluminum.
That makes sense, so how about I put a nonconductive layer of something
(E-Glass?) between the foil and the carbon?

Thanks,