My entire unit is installed in the wing tip and it works well. I run mine off the position lights but would prefer it's own power feed.
The only problem for me is that I tend to want to tinker with the settings. Currently this means pulling the wingtip. I am contemplating options.
put a 1/8" miniplug in the aileron end recess of the wingtip
Glen, put a 1/8" miniplug in the aileron end recess of the wingtip and wire it into the serial lead so you can access the tracker for reconfig without removing the wingtip. Been done before and works great.
Ooh! good idea! Would save pulling the tip.
Greg
Be sure you wire the connector so the GPS is disconnected when you plug in your computer. We discussed this several years ago and there is a wiring diagram somewhere in the APRS forum archive. Kahuna wired his tracker with the mini-jack.
I typed mini-plug in the earlier post, should be mini-jack (now corrected).
Myself and a friend designed an APRS antenna that fits in a fiberglass gearleg fairing. It is coupled to the gear with a coil shunt to ground which cancels the capacitive reactance of the steel gear leg. There is a null node directly to the rear with the metal gear blocking the antenna otherwise it works very well. A couple of friends have been flying with this setup and it works fine.
I always wanted to do something like that, but i thought that tuning it would be a nightmare. How much does the SWR change between airborne and on the ground?
Here's the way I did it:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=277431