GPS antenna location

[wingnut99]

I'm hoping to avoid placing the GPS antenna on the turtle deck outside the plane. Has anyone had success putting it under the cowling?

[GordonTurner]

Popular place seems to be on the glareshield ubder the windscreen. Cowling is fiberglass so that should work too. Some of the RV guys do that.

[NWade]

Popular place seems to be on the glareshield ubder the windscreen. Cowling is fiberglass so that should work too. Some of the RV guys do that.

My Sonex still hasn’t had its first flight [grumbles], but I’ve done extensive testing in the driveway and centered on the glareshield seems to work well.

The glareshield area is also where we glider pilots tend to place GPS antennae in our Sailplanes, since drag is TheDevil(tm) and GPS don’t work so good through carbon fiber. :-P

Take care,

—Noel Wade
Sonex #1339
(stuck in paint and with a cracked canopy)

[wingnut99]

Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to put it there and thought it would probably work but I was concerned whether the canopy bow would obstruct the signal from behind. We do have a very shallow angle on the huge windshield so that must make enough difference over what a conventional airplane has.

[pfhoeycfi]

Has anyone put 2 gps antenna on the glareshield? I have one for the MGL MX1 EFIS and one for the MGL SP6 for the ADSB. The lit says mount as far away as possible from another gps antenna but doesnt give an indication of what that D is. Has anyone had difficulty with the windscreen bow being directly above the gps antenna?

[racaldwell]

Yes, my RV-6 has two GPS antennas on the glareshield about 3" apart. They still work fine.

My Xenos has two close together but I am not yet finished building. They are mounted under the glareshield with a fiberglass access plate above them. That way there is no reflection of them on the windshield.

Rick Caldwell
Xenos 0057