[TowerTalk] Painting fiberglass antennas

[Dick]

Quite a few years ago we decided to dress up our jets with new paint 
jobs and the radome was included.  Nice, black, and glossy, the radome 
looked real nice against the new paint job.  Then we started getting 
complaints from the aircrews that the radar wasn't getting distant 
contacts like it used to.  We checked the receivers of the jets that 
were being written up but found they were were seeing as well as they 
ever did.  For the nuts of it we did a radome off /on test and found the 
source of the problem.... it was the paint that was attenuating the 
signal and by several db. We had the paint stripped and confirmed that 
was the source of the problem.  The paint was a good quality paint, it 
had to be to stay on the nose as well as it did.  As I recall, the paint 
shop contacted the depot and found out what was recommended and obtained 
the correct stuff.  Now I know paint has come a long way since those 
days and the frequency was considerably higher but it makes me still 
question if painting the fiberglass is a good idea unless you know for 
sure the paint won't cause some attenuation.

Open for comments...  73
Dick, N0IM  

-- 
Dick Bodine
mailto:rbodine at cpinternet.com