OT improving radio reception

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Thanks Gunner. The fact is - I'm not actually a very well qualified engineer. I'm one of the most poorly prepared degreed EE's around. I just have alot of experience designing antennas, and have had the good luck to work with some very good antenna and microwave device guys.

As you know, there are some very sharp, well prepared engineers who frequent this news group. It would be ludicrus for me to represent myself as an expert in their presense.

I read RCM to learn and it really works most of the time.

Jerry

Hmm. Shark alert! Are the fins showing?

Jim

Is the military still using your antennas on the helicopters?

Gunner

It's better to be a red person in a blue state than a blue person in a red state. As a red person, if your blue neighbors turn into a mob at least you have a gun to protect yourself. As a blue person, your only hope is to appease the red mob with herbal tea and marinated tofu.

(Phil Garding)

FM antenna can easily be made from a 6' section of twin lead wire. Short both ends. Cut one wire half way down one side. Splice that cut - now two sides - onto a twin lead line to the radio.

Now direct the (now floppy) antenna - stretch with string or rubber bands ! - Direct the center of the two arms toward the direction of the FM and it is directional.

Martin [ used it while in the dorms at Texas A&M ]

Gunner

That was the Hughes LOH for Viet Nam. I personally wrote the proposal for all 5 antenna systems for their OH6. They awarded my company the contract after I'd left the company. Nobody at the company wanted to do the job and design the antenna systems I'd proposed. So, I got hired back for a nice pay raise so I could refine the antennas I'd proposed. That was back in

1962. I was able to finalize the design of all 5 antenna systems within Hughes specs and on time and within budget. Nothing in that project was anything worth bragging about. But, I sure am not embarressed about the fact that Hughes did use the antennas for as long as I knew, for their Light Observation Helicopter.

Thanks for asking. But there was absolutely nothing difficult about the development of those antennas. Any recent graduate could design circles around me these days.

Jerry

I have excellent results with a wire about six on so feet long connected to the antenna jack of a car radio. I only listen to FM, but think a longer wire would work better on AM.

Dan

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show "Jerry Martes" wrote back on Sun, 27 Feb 2005 23:40:16 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Would that include an aircraft which is parked on the tarmac? Oh wait, that would be a grounded plane. Different critter all together. Never mind.

(This has all been very informative. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to use it, but at least I'll have the words handy, to prove that I've no understanding.)

tschus pyotr

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show "Jerry Martes" wrote back on Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:20:33 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :

I do know, from experience, that I can find the FM station in the truck, then go tune the radio in the shop to match that station (I now know what to listen for.)

The current AH/MH-06 uses Chelton. I love them all. But the AH/OH/MH-06 is still my favorite. Sounds like a weedwacker, moves like a hummingbird.

But there was absolutely nothing difficult about the

Gunner, don't believe him. There's a lot more to making an antenna than putting pretty simulation pictures on a screen. It has to work and not fall off or disintegrate. The fact that Jerry put out a good workmanlike product without a simulation program to do the electrical and mechanical heavy lifting says volumes.

Jerry, who did you work for? The older OH-6s I've run into had D&Ms, IIRC. But that was 15 years after Hughes sold the business.

Kevin Gallimore

Kevin

I think I did all the work myself. I had techs working with me, and a good machine shop. I was definitely a hands on engineer. I was able to get alot of flight time evaluating the antennas and refining the designs. Hughes didnt win the contract so there was no follow on production of the antennas. I think I made about 15 of each antenna and/or matching unit. I used parts of the helicopter as the radiating elements where ever possible. The tail skid was the VHF communication antenna. I had a conductor embedded in the front windshield for the homing antenna. You are right about the shortage of computer aided design assistance in

1962. That computer simulation is very difficult for me to accept even now. And, I realize it works. I'm more of a plumber than an antenna designer.

Jerry

I know..Jerry is much too much of a nice guy to have given his vitae during this discussion, so I sorta wallopped it out of him.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

According to many of my former bosses, the OH-6 is a great illustration of how to make a superior product and have management lose the contract by pissing off your customer. And thus create the OH-58.

I saw that there is now a MH-06 (they already had a Hughes 500)in the American Helicopter Museum when I visited there last week. Took the (13 year old) baby on her first helicopter ride (Bell 206).

I used to write myself into flight tests. But a couple of years ago it came down to staying around aircraft or paying the mortgage. The money is not in aviation. But it gets a piece of you.

Kevin Gallimore