You're not going to know until you put it in there and measure the
VSWR. But the good news is you can tune the antenna/feed-line after
its mounted but before you button things up. The question I'd have
about using a foil antenna attatched to a structure that flexes (like
a wing spar) is you may someday have a break in the foil after the
foil fatigues and then have a flakey antenna the behaves differently
in flight than on the ground when you're trying to debug it.


cal (BD5ER) wrote in message ...
My Internet search didn't turn up what I was looking for so I came here for
advice. The task at hand is the installation of a foil antenna in a composite
canard which would ordinarily be a rather routine task for the plane - a
Quickie - but in this case there are some carbon fiber rods at 25% chord that
make placement impossible without having the foil either near some of the
carbon or metal components.

My question: How much does the carbon fiber rods affect the antenna
performance compared to a few bits of isolated metal (elevator hinge) and does
it make a significant difference if the carbon fiber is PAN or Pitch?