I need an ELT antenna

[dholly 718]

I notice the rod antenna on my Ameri-King AK-450 ELT is broken and I can't seem to find a quick source for a replacement rod. Even if I did, the installation manual say the rod antenna needs to be positioned vertically (which mine is not) and I wonder about it's effectiveness mounted inside the fuse with the 'farady cage effect'? So maybe a whip to the belly or turtle deck mount, or is that too close to the com antenna? Make my own? Suggestions pls.

[Russ. 7]

Doug the ELT antenna should not be mounted on the belly. I have mine on the turtle deck. Comm. ant. on other side. Russ.

Edited 3 Jun 2010 by Russ.

[C5Engineer 1170]

I built a little plate and riveted it in where the turtle deck post is. My antenna is mounted upside down inside the fuse. If it's on the top of your plane if you ever flip her over on her back it's gonna break off and be useless. Most taildraggers I've seen have them in the fuse. You can buy a whole new AmeriKing ELT for pretty cheap these days. How old is yours?? Might be a better route to just replace it all or invest in a 406.

[akflyer 1427]

I built a little plate and riveted it in where the turtle deck post is. My antenna is mounted upside down inside the fuse. If it's on the top of your plane if you ever flip her over on her back it's gonna break off and be useless. Most taildraggers I've seen have them in the fuse. You can buy a whole new AmeriKing ELT for pretty cheap these days. How old is yours?? Might be a better route to just replace it all or invest in a 406.

One thought... buddy of mine wrecked his plane (the time you really need the ELT to work) it ended up on its back... guess what happened to those antennas that were on the turtle deck / wing root.. he heard the elt going off in his head set so he went on to the next issue.. got out of the plane, made sure the passenger was OK then set about getting a fire going etc... blizzard cam in that night.. he kept going back and putting his head set on and turning on the radio and confirmed that the ELT was going off... took 3 days in a blizzard before it hit him that the antennas were broke off. He pulled the ELT out of the plane, ran up the built in antenna and presto.. withing minutes rescue was looking for him.

I put the antenna for mine behind my seat inside the plane. if it gets broke, the ELT will be destroyed and I will be long past caring if it does not go off. The mounting instructions for mine said it was fine to put it inside the airframe on a tube n fabric plane.

[dholly 718]

Yeah I know most E-AB's mount ELT's inside but the manual says use an external antenna only. Maybe to meet FAR 91.52 rather than performance, regardless, there are no internal antenna install instructions. It does say to keep 3' away from comm antennas. Since this ELT is only a year or so old and a pretty popular model, I just figured finding a replacement rod antenna would be easy.

Also, after RTFM, it says to position the antenna vertically w/ the tip up but my ELT and rod antenna were mounted horizontally. How necessary is antenna orientation really for best performance? I know why it was mounted the way it was due to the lack of handy up/down tubing in the KF III so fabricating a new antenna mount to properly orient an external antenna internally may be the best answer. Either way, I need a new antenna.

Check those old parts boxes and let me know if you have something that will work before I try to braze the old rod antenna.