A myriad of antennas is frequently seen all over the fuselage of a plane. The advancement in technology has made it possible to incorporate these into modern airplanes. While they resemble lightning rods, these are actually a range of airplane antennas that serve several purposes, including communications and radar.
Antennas may be dispersed from across the top and also bottom of the aircraft and also other places, depending on their application. In this article, we will give you a quick rundown of the most common antennas seen aboard planes. These are also electrical parts and can be made available from Parts Cage Inc.
There are 3 basic antennas types used in aviation systems:
1. Dipole antenna
The dipole antenna seems to be the directional antenna that is used to generate radio waves. It is a certain conductor with a length that is roughly half the frequency of the carrier frequency. A Hertz antenna is a term used to describe this type of antenna.
A dipole antenna present in the center receives the AC transmission current. The current flow is strongest in the center of an antenna and decreases gradually as it reaches the ends as the current alternates. Then it reverses direction and flows in the opposite direction.
As a result, the highest radio wave field will be transverse to the antenna’s length and the biggest magnetic wave is in the center of the antenna. The majority of dipoles in aircraft antennas are horizontally polarized.
2. Marconi antenna
A one-fourth wavelength antenna is known as a Marconi antenna. The second one-fourth of wavelengths are created by leveraging the up in these areas of the conducting aircraft skin to achieve the effectiveness of a half-wave antenna.
Marconi antennas are used in the majority of aircraft VHF communication antennas. They are usually vertically polarized and provide an omnidirectional field. The ground plane, which makes up a second one-fourth frequency of the antenna should be fashioned underneath the skin where its Marconi antenna is installed on fabric-skinned aircraft.
Aluminum foil or thin aluminum can be used for this. The ground plane is made of four or even more wires that run under the skin out from the base of a vertical antenna. This is sufficient to provide the antenna with the required conducting length.
3. Loop antenna
The loop antenna is the third directional antenna usually found on aircraft. The field properties of an antenna cable that has been fashioned into a certain loop differ greatly from those of a straight half-wavelength antenna. It also keeps the antenna smaller and less susceptible to damage.
The loop antenna’s characteristics are particularly direction-sensitive when used as a receiver antenna. When a radio wave directly hits the loop broadside, it creates equal current flow on both sides.
The orientation of the current flow, on the other hand, is diametrically opposed. As a result, they cancel each other out and generate no signal. Whenever a radio wave hits the loop antenna of the plane, the current is generated on one side first, and then on the other.
This enables the system flows to have distinct phases, and it is from this angle that the highest signal is generated.
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