Stratux ADS-B Box copper tape use

[737mech]

Check this out, https://www.thingiverse.com/make:273439 I'm getting this 3d printed box, others have posted about it. Note the copper tape the user claims for ground plane for antennas. Opinions here, would this really help that much?
It's a rasberry Pi computer with nano sdr's and gps running Stratux. That feeds adsb info to your EFB program on the Ipad. I'm using Foreflight and it works great!!

 

[Ubbe]

Those antennas are tuned to 978MHz and 1090MHz respectivly. Depending of how the tuning have been done, using a perfect groundplane, or tuned for non groundplane use, or done with the original box where the antennas base are high obove the PI3, the tuning will be off when not using a groundplane, adding copper foil, or using the authors box where the antennas instead are in the same hight as the PI3.

Also having the antenna angled or straight will make it shorter or longer and if the tuning where made with the antennas straight they will be detuned when angled.

I received an AIS box to supply AIS information to marinetraffic.com and it's a PI3 with two SDRs and it is impossible to use it with a network cable as it interfere with almost all frequencies. I use it with WiFi and it still interfere with a couple of channels in VHF and UHF. Using a plastic box with PI3 could be dangerous to the radio in the airplane.

If the stratux author feels he get better reception using coppar foil then it's probable because he is tuning the antennas more to thier intended frequencies.

/Ubbe