Hi,

Does anyone have that issue of QST?  I'd like to get a copy of the article to build one as well.

Cheers' Dave

Thanks, everyone - I've received some great feedback about this topic - both on and off line. Some of the key points:

• For UHV/VHF operations, a standard handheld with a standard rubber ducky antenna should work fine (thanks VE6MB!). So getting airborne and operating on 2m and 70cm should be pretty straightforward.

• Little airplanes are loud and its tough to hear the standard speakers on a handheld in flight, so it's best if we can find a way to patch the handheld into an aviation headset (thanks VE6IXD!). I have an aviation headset with a standard audio-in jack designed for listening to music, etc., so probably a simple patch cable could solve the problem. We could probably experiment with different mics to see what works best with the handheld. 
  

• It's also probably possible to patch the handheld output into the aircrafts intercom for monitoring (see the eHam article from NA6M) ... my understanding is there is some impedance-matching that needs to be done, and the general aviation audio-in jack is a little unusual, but overall this shouldn't be too difficult of a project. Not absolutely necessary given the headset option (above). A slightly more advanced project would be to create a PTT patch cable to use the aviation headset to transmit via the handheld as well. 

(I posted this in the "Projects" forum a while back, but it didn't generate much traffic, so I thought I'd try again here in "General"...)

- - - 

I'm a new private pilot, and as I'm working toward my additional ratings (instrument rating, commercial licence, etc.) I need to "build time". So I've been flying a number of cross-country flights (mostly Southern Alberta and British Columbia, but I'm planning trips to Northern Ontario and also the Arctic this summer) in order to keep building my flight hours. 

I always take my VHF/UHF handheld up flying with me, but for obvious reasons (I'm flying the airplane!), I don't operate it in the air. But it seems to me that actually operating in the air using handhelds - or other smaller rigs that are suitable for, eg., SOTA - might be kind of fun. Rigging the antennas can be a bit of a challenge, I imagine, as it'd all have to be "inside the plexiglass" on the rental aircraft that I fly, but nevertheless it seems to be entirely do-able, as was suggested in this recent Reddit r/amateurradio thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/5hshzf/for_those_of_you_who_have_gone_aeronautical/?st=IWLL64XG&sh=31c06d63

Found an old eHam thread about this kind of thing, too!:

http://www.eham.net/articles/10144

(Maybe once I get my own airplane I can see about getting an AME to sign-off on additional external antennas or something). It might be nice to have an interested club-member come along on some of my flights to operate in the sky. So, if you're interested, drop me a line and I'll let you know what my flight schedule looks like and maybe we can try to operate air mobile - couple of hours in the air trying to pick up repeaters might be fun?

   - Chris (VA6KC)