Glider electrics etc

Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires. What connector would you use ?
Dan

On GPS antennae, for what it's worth:

I opened a GPS puck antenna used for my PowerFlarm Portable, unsoldered
the wires, cut the coax to the required length and soldered the center
conductor and shield to the correct locations. I often had GPS dropouts
on the Flarm.Â* I recently removed that antenna and, using the internal
antenna on the portable unit, have had no more drop outs.Â* Just sayin'...

On 2/6/2020 10:32 AM, wrote:
Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires. What connector would you use ?
Dan

--
Dan, 5J

At 17:32 06 February 2020, wrote:
Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna
wires. What connector would you use ?
Dan

Certainly NOT Belling Lee.

GPS uses a much higher frequency and you can't afford to take liberties.

The connector to use depends on the cable size. Be guided by the connector
than connects the antenna to the GPS receiver.

On Thu, 06 Feb 2020 09:32:50 -0800, crosscountryboxco wrote:

Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna
wires. What connector would you use ?

I suppose that depends on what you're connecting the GPS antenna to and
what sort of connection it uses.

My RedBox FLARM has a BNF socket for the GPS puck connection. The
supplied puck had way to much wire for my installation, so I cut the wire
on a Gilsson puck down to 150mm (6") and soldered a right-angle BNF plug
onto it. The FLARM system works perfectly.

OTOH my EW logger uses a small brass? gold-plated? screw-on antenna
connection. I didn't have ant replacements, so this time I wound the
excess cable up into a neat 'donut' secured with a couple of cable ties,
clipped the supplied ferrite core over the logger end, connected it all
up and again it works very well.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 11:32:52 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires. What connector would you use ?
Dan

Dan,

It might be OK to shorten the GPS antenna's coax cable at the puck end (if you are particularly handy with a small tipped soldering iron) - but better to just loosely wrap up the excess cabling. The other end of the cable has the tricky and tiny SMA or MCX coaxial connectors which (unlike BNC and TNC connectors) requires some rather special expertise and tooling.

As to your idea of "cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires [really coax]" I would give a definitive NOT. The beauty of coax is that the outer shield protects the very small signal from interference riding on the inner conductor. Cutting the cable to properly insert a COAXIAL quick disconnect connector on the thin coax can interfere with that protection and is difficult to properly accomplish to say the least. Commercially made quick disconnects of this size are available from Craggy Aero (FLARM only?).

My US$0.02.

John DeRosa OHM

On Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 10:04:03 AM UTC-5, John DeRosa OHM Ω http://aviation.derosaweb.net wrote:
On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 11:32:52 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Thanks !
What about cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires. What connector would you use ?
Dan

Dan,

It might be OK to shorten the GPS antenna's coax cable at the puck end (if you are particularly handy with a small tipped soldering iron) - but better to just loosely wrap up the excess cabling. The other end of the cable has the tricky and tiny SMA or MCX coaxial connectors which (unlike BNC and TNC connectors) requires some rather special expertise and tooling.

As to your idea of "cutting and reconnecting (quick disconnect) the GPS antenna wires [really coax]" I would give a definitive NOT. The beauty of coax is that the outer shield protects the very small signal from interference riding on the inner conductor. Cutting the cable to properly insert a COAXIAL quick disconnect connector on the thin coax can interfere with that protection and is difficult to properly accomplish to say the least. Commercially made quick disconnects of this size are available from Craggy Aero (FLARM only?).

My US$0.02.

John DeRosa OHM

The coax is very thin, and the shield is very, very thin. Take care not to pinch the cable while wrapping up ('loosely' in John's words). Sharp corners with any coax should be avoided.

You'll have at least one at your presentation, John, if the weather doesn't slam this Little Rock convention like it did last time...

Dan