Hello,
I was really impressed with the internal antenna mod that pzrwest (sp?) brought to the board. Here's my implementation of it. I made up ten for my tanks pretty much for free.

The wire is 14 Ga magnet wire. Varnish finish. Cut it to the same length as the HL antenna and wound it around a hollow plastic tube. Glued up the rest and put double sided tape on the back for mounting.

As you can see the wire thickness is ideal for connection to the stock HL connector with no mods and the stock heat shrink can be reused.

Range is the same as the stock HL antenna and now I mostly cover the big eyesore rivet hole on the decks of my tanks.

Perry

I need to try this again. Maybe if mounted in the turret, I'll have better luck with the metal hulls.

Very impressive, thanks for the idea...

Maybe HL will someday do this from the factory..

Thanks Perry, although I always thought that the antenna had to be extended and a certain length to pick up the radio waves, if your idea works then I must be thinking too old school or something.

Hey Armchair,
Not my idea here, mostly dumb fiddling on my part. My admittedly unscientific conclusion is that this is equal to the standard HL antenna. Usually old ideas are good ideas so your probably right but this gets us close enough.

Perry

I use the wire that comes in the crappy HL battery chargers. There's enough in there to make it 1/4 wavelength.

Nice execution on this idea. I've had mixed results with these internal antennas. Some work, some don't, which is really strange as I build them all the same. None of them look as good as your example though. Maybe the thicker wire is the answer.

[8D] Il like how you made the mounting board for the wire. 14g wire? That could certaintly transmit more of the signal. I like to incorporate this method in to my Tanks. I have 3 Tanks missing their antennaes. Darn shows .

Perry,

What is "magnetic" wire and where can one purchase it?

Frank

Magnet wire is just wire that was wound around a electromagnetic componet or device,usually varnished when wound around a lead or metal core.When current is applied the result it a magnetic field?Just a guess,I could be wrong so Perry would you please enlighten us to you definition of "magnet wire".Thanks Blake

yeah, the metal hull really messed up the signal from the internal antena... tried everything but wont work.. but with my other plastic hulls the internal antenas works great... most of my tank has internal antena except for the 131 whch uses asiatam metal lower hull...

daryl

Magnet wire can be purchased at Radio Shack in bare wire or a couple of different varnish colors. It's just wire used to make an electromagnet or motor. I guess they call it that because it comes pre-varnished.

Have you done this to replace or supplement the exsisting antenna?

TAO,
replace the external antena...

Tanks , I'm gonna shorten the stocker to more scaleish and do the internal antenna also

As mentioned before, magnet wire is just high conductivity copper wire with a baked on varnish insulator. I use it for home made alternators in my wind turbines. 14 Ga is pretty thick but thinner Ga could be used, it just won't hook to the stock connector as well.

I bet you could take apart the stock charger (who uses them anyway) and find some in the transformer in there.

I have noticed that they can be finicky as some have stated. That is why I use the double sided tape on the back. It allows me to 'tune' its operation by putting it in different places or orientations. Placement is by trial and error but generally vertical mounting as far from the esc/motors/speaker as possible.

Perry

Perry,

I tried your approach today of using 14ga magnet wire for the internal antennatoday. I drilled a small hole in a 1/4" dia styrene tube, inserted one end of the wire, and tried to wind it, but the 14ga is tough to bend easily and uniformly. Any tricks to wrapping it around the styrene core? I kinda mangled my first styrene tube core because its just not rigid enough to stand up to wrapping the wire over it.
Thanks
Frank

I just took the stock HL antenna and wound it around a piece of plastic tube and connected the wire to it.  It works great, I'm converting all my tanks over.

Just place it as high as you can and as far away from the internal motors, speakers etc...

I supplied the Hobby Havoc online store with 100 on my HL antenna mod units can't say if they still have them yet. On panzer 3's Iplace my coil on the right side of the hull beside the main board ans works perfectly, on Tiger 1's I placed the coil on the back left side of the back panel with the same results. I got 100yrd line of sight responses