(picture of stock LiteSTICK)

 

 

Mod 1. The plastic wing mounts don't have enough dihedral designed in and I needed to do something, but I didn't like the string across the tips of the wings.

I simply got some aluminum tube from the K&S tube display at my local hobby shop and bent some new wing sockets to the an angle of 20 degrees (10 degrees per wing looked about right).

After cutting the tube to length I made a small slit in the center with a razor saw and bent it to 20 degree angle marked on a piece of paper. Of course, you make one for the front and one for the rear of wing.

I epoxied the tubes to the wing mounts and when I had everything in the right place I wrapped sewing thread around each end and soaked it with thin CA. They won't move now!

Now the wings are held at a nice angle and the design flaw is fixed. Works great!

Mod 2. The credit for this home made Deans type antenna goes to Tony Van Roon and comes from his web page: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/gadgets/flywire As the photo shows, I choose to make my own coil which is 31 turns of #30 enameled wire (get it at Radio Shack!), closely wound on a piece of 1/8" wooden dowel. This equals the 1.5 uH choke. I left about 6" of wire from the receiver antenna and soldered this to the coil wire. The finished length of the whip antenna is 6" of .020 inch diameter music wire with a nice little loop bent on top so you don't get stuck.

The bottom is some right angle bends to fit the stick and wrapped with more of the sewing thread. Then just solder the other end of the coil to the bottom of the antenna. I covered all of these connections with a light coat of epoxy to protect them.

Be sure to range check this setup! We need so little range with a LiteStik that you can walk away with your transmitter antenna up until you are satisfied!