Continuing to have GPS signal lost sporadically. Curious if anyone knows whether or not the Comant antenna has a connection above the headliner or if it has a fixed pigtail. Also interested if anyone knows how hard of a job it is to drop the headliner.
Patrick,
Yes, there is a coax connection up there. The headliner drops pretty easily.
Thanks Roger, I’ll see if I can get to that connection to clean it before I set up an appointment with the avionics shop. Any pointers on dropping the headliner would be appreciated!
Continuing to hijack Todd’s thread.
My attempts at correcting dropped signal were not fruitful. Got this message back from the avionics shop and wanted to see if it made sense to any of the experts following along:
“Yes, I got it and we looked at the plane. Both GPS locked on. The number 1 was weaker than the number 2 but both achieved good position. I attribute that to antenna placement. Cirrus put the number 2 antenna under the glareshield and the number 1 is above the center below the skin. The skin is impregnated with a wire mesh and partly shields the number 1. All the older Cirrus have this problem. I need to find the time to make a bracket under the glareshield to mount them both.”
I didn’t see any bracket on #2, seemed to just be attached with velcro or double sided tape. Does this solution make sense?
As far as the mounting, the current wisdom is to mount with a bracket because the tape would fail.
Yep, that is the way they came from the factory. And it wasn’t even good velcro [;)] Some people have been building a bracket. I think that is smart.
All the early planes left the factory with the GPS antenna in a cavity forward of the CAPS handle. With WAAS Cirrus recommended they come out of there and go on the roof. It is really easy to just put it on top where it belongs.
Thanks Roger, I’ll ask my guy about the wisdom of going ahead and putting it on the roof. As you may have surmised already, I’m not waas equipped, but likely will need to do so next year.
Dave yourself some money and make your wife happy this holiday season. Upgrade to WAAS and move the antenna at the same time. Wrap a bow around the antenna and tell her, “Merry Christmas Dear”