2.4g antenna routing

[n20capri]

Anyone NOT have it sticking out of the body? For some reason I feel they are very fragile (had one break from the receiver body already) and a friend rolled his and ruined the antenna and lost reception. Old school stuff took the abuse. Also paranoid of losing reception if it's not sticking up out of the body...

Don't like the new school "you have nothing" if reception is lost...back in the day you'd get glitchy but would be able to run towards the car with your hands up to maintain control.

Just looking for ideas on what to do with it to maintain the awesome new school range but keep it more protected...

Thanks

[alien3t]

like the look of na antenna, still can stick a tube out. I know in my b44.2, my sc10. my ofna 9.5. i have the antenna coiled up in shrink wrap double side taped next to the receiver. have not had one glitch and i run a cheap 2.4. during races, and busy practice days. My b5 for the heck of it, i have a tube and some antenna poking up for the look of it, but you can keep it real short to where if you flip, wing and car hit ground before antenna.

[R Cane]

One of my crawlers has the antenna under the body, cuz ya know those are gonna roll...I've never had any issues with it at all.

[Kyoshojoe]

Ive coiled mine and had em sticking up. never had a problem, its more of transmitter power than anything IMO.

[RC104ever]

Interesting question. I haven't had any issues with losing a wire in a rollover. That being said, I did find that in my B44, it was necessary to have it outside the body because the carbon fibre apparently interferes with the signal. But on all my other vehicles, I have a tube sticking out just for the look but the actual wire is just loose inside.

[Mr. ED]

I try to run the wire straight (not coiled up) and to a high point.
If there's no hole in the body yet or the receiver is nowhere near it, I'll run the wire to a shocktower or topdeck = keeping it under the body just because that's easier hen putting the body on in a hurry. I wouldn't tape it over its entire length flat on a metal or graphite part though. Coiling up is a bit risky too: those are coaxial cables and don't like short bends: the inner line could break.

If there's a hole in the body already why not use a tube that's a bit too long so the wire doesn't stick out?

[Coelacanth]

I simply cut the antenna tube so it's either a bit longer than the antenna wire, or the antenna wire is a bit longer than the tube, and pop the little rubber cap on the end. Either way, the antenna wire is protected.

[Kyoshojoe]

my spectrum receivers are just standard bell wire antennas. Most of the time I route antenna with a 4inch tube if I can.

Not sure how 2.4 works but I imagine its like anything else digitally transmitted. Transmitter sends high frequency microwave pulses that get put into a buffer of sorts in the receiver so it can weed out any interference or noise. Back in the day you had low band AM RF systems that had to have length tuned antennas and they were very receptive to interference from light ballasts, garage door openers, car ignitions, etc. You would route the antenna vertical to try and get above and away from the cars motor and electronics and out of the interference and more in line of sight with the transmitter. The 2.4 systems of today operate at such a high band that standard rf noise has no effect on performance. a faulty fluorescent ballast will wreak havoc on an AM system but will have as much effect on a 2.4 as yelling at it. Another thing to consider is that most older systems were analog and so the receiver was operating in real time so to say and had no way of telling what was signal and what was noise. Digital operates by encoding and decoding which means that the receiver can tell what is pure signal because it has the transmitters verification code.

I am being very general and broad and I am no expert so I might be off on some points. You basically don't want your antenna to be routed in a situation that blocks its signal, metal, carbon, metallic paints and even high frequency noise can block signal. I would say that it is best to try and route it up but don't worry too much about it unless you get really bad reception. some systems....spectrum for example are known for having limited range.