On military aircraft we never paint antennae for performance reasons....not sure how much that would apply here, being receive only.Originally Posted by srt8-in-largo
On military aircraft we never paint antennae for performance reasons....not sure how much that would apply here, being receive only.
My girls:
Isleen - 2014 F6BD
Saorla - 1995 FLSTN Heritage Special
"Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy."
Ambrose Bierce
Great point 53. Antennas are always bidirectional; if you can receive with it, you can transmit with it and vice versa. Anything that affects reception will also affect transmission. If you happen to see a "beam pattern" published for an antenna, this pattern applies to both transmit and receive.
In critical applications (i.e. life and death) I'd never suggest doing anything that compromises communications, but you may be able to get away with it here without too much impact.
Everything electricity related is governed by two forces, electric and magnetic. The electric field has an effect on metals, "metals" being the chemistry definition... a molecular structure that has a "sea" of free electrons. The magnetic field has an effect *only* on ferrous materials; if there's no iron in it, it's essentially invisible to mag fields. I would be as certain as I could that the paint has no metal or iron in it.
An electromagnetic wave propagating through the air is also affected by dielectric properties of materials, permittivity and permeability. This factor is exactly why submarines have trouble communicating using radios. Sea water has different dielectric properties than air, and when subs transmit a signal from deep below, when that signal hits the air-water boundary it's mostly reflected back into the water and can't get up into the air where it can be received. The paint adds a tiny dielectric discontinuity... and will introduce small losses and reflections of the radio signal. I wouldn't expect it to be too bad though.
Reception and performance of shorty antennas are already compromised by it being a "shorty". A perfect antenna to receive (or transmit) should be exactly 1/4 wavelength of the signal. Instead of having a straight wire antenna, shorties typically coil the wire up, so that the length of the wire is as close as possible to 1/4 wavelength, but just curled up. Unfortunately this doesn't work as good as a straight antenna, but sometimes good enough.
Oh yes...I was a CB operator for many years. Understand all of that and more.
My point was that the OP (Vol1chuck) mentioned that performance had already suffered.
While none of us are expecting an "acoustically perfect anechoic chamber audiophile solution" on our bikes, Chuck needs to decide if any further degradation in performance is warranted for mere aesthetics.
My girls:
Isleen - 2014 F6BD
Saorla - 1995 FLSTN Heritage Special
"Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy."
Ambrose Bierce
Hey I am a Amateur (ham) radio operator I gotta get in on this also
1/4 wave on A.M. Broadcast band is around 150 ft a bit long to drag
1/4 wave on F.M. Band around 2 ft.
Solution------tune off the radio and listen to that sweet six
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Doug K9CRT
Decatur, IL
2013 F6b (Red)
Cage 2016 Chevrolet Silverado Z71
Cage in Avatar Honda S2000
Gotcha 53... sometimes I'm rambler of both the highway AND the keyboard.
What frequency does HAM operate on? I'm told ham signals bounce off the atmosphere, which is how you're able to communicate around the globe.
Antenna design has some other tricks that I'm not familiar with. The antenna I use in my TPMS sensor is less than 1 inch, yet 1/4 wavelength at 325 MHz is 9 inches and somehow they made it to work pretty good. I suppose a signal amplifier can be built in... which now makes me wonder if there's a shorty antenna with something like this that won't see any performance degradation.
My wifey enjoys the full length of my stock antenna.
No paint but you could dip it in Plasti Dip black.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
2015 F6B Deluxe
Matte Silver
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