fazer

I have a AR8020T DSMX 8-Channel Telemetry Receiver that was in a plane that I crashed on landing and noticed about 3 " of the plastic sheathing was stripped off one of the antennas. Will this have any effect at all? The receiver appears to work fine.
Can I repair it by putting some heat shrink tubing in that area?

LLRCFlyer

The insulation on the antenna wire provides radio frequency shielding. The exposed wire is the active portion of the antenna and must be 1/4 wave length of 2.4 Ghz (31.228 mm) long. Your antenna length with the insulation skinned off is no longer a quarter wave length and will not be effective. Your receiver still "works" but it is running on a single antenna instead of two and you will lose the diversity antenna capability. This means that at longer ranges, there will be significantly more antenna fades, more frame losses and possibly some "holds" as the aircraft orientation relative to the transmitter changes due to maneuvers. It would show up as radio "glitches" that could last well over one second. It should still work for close in flying (< 400 feet) such as for slab type foam profile models, I absolutely would not use it in a "full range" application. It may be possible to regain some diversity function by measuring the length of the good antenna exposed wire (31.228 mm) and then cut the bad antenna to exactly the same length of unshielded (exposed) wire. Adding heat shrink tubing will not provide the required RF shielding. The best option for returning your Rx to "full range" status is to replace the antenna. Some receivers (Futuba and Lemon) use antennas that snap onto the circuit boards. I don't know about the AR8020T. You would have to open the plastic case and see if the antenna is snapped onto a terminal or is soldered. Replacement antennas are available with two different sizes of snap on terminals, so you would have to verify which size is needed. I know Lemon has used both sizes and Futuba uses the larger size. If Spektrum uses snap-on antennas, I suspect they would be the large size terminals.

LLRCFlyer

P.S. The other option for regaining diversity antenna benefits is to add a satellite receiver to your AR8020T receiver. This would add more antennas. You would need a serial port SRXL2 Remote Receiver (about $40). Personally, I won't fly my expensive planes without at least one, and preferably 2 or 3, satellite receivers.

fazer

Thank you for the info.
I will send it back to Spectrum and see what they can do with it.