OK, maybe so. BUT...I STILL vote for putting the antenna outside.
Maybe the wing was acting like a waveguide and the RF was coming out
holes at the root end Or maybe Bellance used cheap silver or only
put on a layer a micron in thickness

Scott


RST Engineering wrote:

I would say that you are wrong. Bellanca paid me decent money back in the
early '80s to make the tests to see if we could hide their antennas inside
their wood and fabric wings. They actually shipped me a wing from Alex MN
to GV California so that I could do the preliminary work out here before I
went back there (in the dead of winter, what a mistake THAT was) to hang
antennas in a real live airframe and fly them around.

THe theory is that the aluminum powder/dust is so broken up into individual
particles insulated from each other by a dope binder that they do NOT act as
a shield.

Test: Put two antennas 30 meters apart. Radiate a signal from one and use
a field strength meter to receive at the other (spectrum analyzer).
Carefully slip a wing over the transmit antenna. Less than 0.1 dB
difference. Slip the same wing over the receive antenna. Same difference.

Jim



"Scott" wrote in message
.. .

I would say it isn't the best idea. The silver coat used on the fabric has
tiny aluminum pieces for uV protection. Seems to me this would somewhat
shield the antenna and limit the signals into and out of the antenna. Of
course, in the real world, it would probably work.

Scott