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BitHed
06-09-2005, 01:28 AM
...Is it possible / plausible / logical to remove a beat up antenna from the reciever and put in a new one?

Mazda787b
06-09-2005, 01:33 AM
Yes, but you need to make sure the new one is not longer, or as I have been told, it will fry. I would advise you use the same thickness of wire as well. If you are still using the RC18 Rx, I would recommend using some regular ol' 18ga wire. I replaced the original antenna with some I bought from radioshack, and I have no problems to date. Plus, I got mine in red to match my Aon 4900, so it was a win-win situation.

BitHed
06-09-2005, 01:35 AM
...Stylin'...So it CAN be done...Is it merely a matter of a hot iron and a steady hand or should i pour whiskey on the wound first? Always seems to work for the cowboys :D

mOOsE
06-09-2005, 02:05 AM
ha. I would use similar length wire and thickness but nothing will fry anyway on the rx. It is only a piece of wire in the first place, it is simply used to amplify the range for which the connection can carry.

Mazda787b
06-09-2005, 02:10 AM
ha. I would use similar length wire and thickness but nothing will fry anyway on the rx. It is only a piece of wire in the first place, it is simply used to amplify the range for which the connection can carry.

Yes, but if it is too long, you WILL damage the reciever, no dbout about it.

Bithed,

Yes, a steady hand and a low-heat soldering iron is all you need. I suggest a 20 or 30-watt to make sure you don't overheat the board.

tornacl90rx7
06-09-2005, 02:26 AM
You dont have to worry about the length cookin the RX but you do have to worry about glitching with a longer antenna .... you need to use 28-32 guage wire that is stranded and not solid ... I hav epersonally replaced several antenna on rx's and havent had any problem with the reception after ward ....

Gregg

Hawk
06-09-2005, 04:22 AM
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXERH8&P=0

OneTimeCRX
06-09-2005, 01:25 PM
A wire's length will determine the frequency it's tuned to, just like changing the length of a harpsichord string. If you change the length a little, the wire will be out of tune to the frequency you're running at, and the reception of the signal will drop greatly. However, it is possible to lengthen the wire by certain amounts without ruining the tune - you can double or quadruple the length for example and everything should still be ok.

I'm not sure how specific RX units work, but a simple RX unit won't fry from changing the antenna length. However, if it's a complex RX unit that adjusts the signal gain according to the reception, I can see how using a wrongly lengthened wire would cause it to burn out (from trying too hard to amplify the signal).