Glider Operation
With a low power consumption, the ability to monitor both the active and standby frequencies together, memory channel scanning and extended receive range the XCOM radio has found a strong following in the glider market.
We make a specially modified version of our radio for the glider market, the main difference being a modified speaker amplifier which will work down to very low voltages. The XCOM radio was originally designed for sport aircraft, as such most of these aircraft operate on 13.8 V, gliders start out with fresh batteries at only 12 V and they progressively get worse throughout the day's flight. Our standard speaker amplifier starts to lose output power (e.g. volume) when the voltage drops.
The glider version of our radio has a special speaker amplifier which will maintain the volume output from the XCOM down to around 10 V.
If you are ordering and XCOM radio for use in a glider you must make sure you advise this at time of ordering and we will ship you the specially modified radio.
Additionally, there are several things you can do to your radio to reduce the power consumption during flight. Turning off the XCOM's internal intercom is just one way of saving power because this is not used in a glider installation.
The XCOM radio uses an amplified boom microphone and it's our recommendation to use the boom microphone that we sell. The XCOM has been tested with different brands of microphones with mixed results.
Following is a suggested wiring diagram for glider installations. Click the image to download a printable PDF file
For more information on glider installations please don't hesitate to contact XCOM Avionics
