I recently bought a Telemetrum Starter Kit from the Garbee and Garbee Web Store. There is a combo box where you can choose "1/4 wave wire" or "SMA connector + $5.00" I didn't really give it much thought, but I picked "SMA connector" (I think I may have thought: "it cost more, it must be better")
When I got the starter set, I realized that that it wasn't "in addition to a 1/4 wave wire" but "instead of". So ... I went back to the gag.com site and found the Whip Antenna and bought that. Then I got to thinking about how I would install the altimeter with whip antenna in a rocket. (Good time to start thinking about it, eh? :-) My (first) target rocket for the Telemetrum is a Giant Leap Vertical Assault 3.0. and it doesn't have "acres" of space. So my first question is: Can I just bend the whip antenna into a horse-shoe shape to get it to fit into the altimeter bay? (I guess the really question is "Will this significantly compromise the performance of the antenna?") And if it is "a bad idea" what should I do? My first thought was to find a short SMA male to SMA female cable so that the whip antenna can be straight. Is this "a good idea"? (necessary?, etc) Next: in poking around the Altus Metrum and gag.com web sites while researching about my altimeter question, I saw a link to a "SMA To BNC adapter" on the Teledongle page. I bought an Arrow II Hand Held Portable Antenna 440-3 and in looking more closely at the product description page, it looks like it has a BNC connector. So it looks like I'll need to get either the SMA to BNC adapter or get a coax cable with a male SMA connector on one end and a male BNC connector on the other. Have I got that right? If so, any recommendations? Peter "I just got my ham radio technical license, so *clearly* I'm an expert on all things RF" Hackett :-) or :-< or :-/ ?
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