How much range could you expect from 250 mw?
- Thread starter Bartman
- Start date
plingboot
Member
have a read HERE
that said, much of the discussion relates to fpv with a plane - which is 'usually' an out and back kind of flight with high gain/directional antennas on the ground.
sure i've read one of ibcrazy's posts (probably on rcg) which said he was getting more than 1km on a 100mw VTx with his cloverleaf/spw (bluebeam) antennas.
that said, much of the discussion relates to fpv with a plane - which is 'usually' an out and back kind of flight with high gain/directional antennas on the ground.
sure i've read one of ibcrazy's posts (probably on rcg) which said he was getting more than 1km on a 100mw VTx with his cloverleaf/spw (bluebeam) antennas.
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DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
I am thinking with the best possible setup you can achieve ranges of 10'-100'. But that's only if you have state of the art blubeam antennas and a diversity board and angle everything correctly with noise isolators, no carbon on your frame and live in the middle of no where. 
I've given up on this FV thing for the 2nd time now. My original fatsharks with stock antennas got about 1000'. Now that I have the iftron 250mw and immersion diversity with the proper cloverleaf blubeams and a 8dbi patch I get a whopping 50' max distance. I start getting static at about 5-10'. No exaggerations. You so much as walk around the tripod with the antennas wrong and it is gone!
I've given up on this FV thing for the 2nd time now. My original fatsharks with stock antennas got about 1000'. Now that I have the iftron 250mw and immersion diversity with the proper cloverleaf blubeams and a 8dbi patch I get a whopping 50' max distance. I start getting static at about 5-10'. No exaggerations. You so much as walk around the tripod with the antennas wrong and it is gone!
5.8 is pretty weak in terms of range. I have a 200mw TX on my quad and have went probably 1/4 mile so far but that was LOS. If you try to go behind trees and such range is much less. On my plane I am using an 800mw 1.2 TX and have gone 4 miles so far with perfect video. If I was going for range I'd go with 900 or 1.2.
Macsgrafs
Active Member
yeehaanow
Member
I am thinking with the best possible setup you can achieve ranges of 10'-100'. But that's only if you have state of the art blubeam antennas and a diversity board and angle everything correctly with noise isolators, no carbon on your frame and live in the middle of no where.
I think you're missing some 0's there??
With a 200mw 5.8ghz tx and the stock 3dbi whip, and 8dbi patch antenna on Rx I could get over 1000' with pretty decent quality. I once controlled a full-size FPV RC truck from about 1500' not quite LOS with the patch and the stock whip diversity rx. The signal was not great at the extremities, but still 'flyable. The cloverleaf makes everything much better now, and I have very few dropouts, never goes to blue-screen anymore.
Kilby
Active Member
I've got skew planar & cloverleaf as well as the stock whips. Nothing gets me past 150m. I started with just the rx that's built into the Fat Shark goggles, then got an external rx but got the same performance. Right now I'm just using the stock whips as I haven't made the "mod" to my rx that is required to get the bluebeam working right.
This is the mod I'm talking about.. just a resistor that needs to be pulled off the board.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18484051&postcount=786
-Terry
seattle_helo
Member
The 5.8Ghz stuff can work pretty well. I'm using some RC305 RX's with corresponding 200mw TX's with cloverleaf, skew wheel and turbine antennas. I've been pushing things out to over 2000' via FPV and it does start to get fuzzy but the image is still usable. Very unforgiving to any carbon or metal obstructions in the way of the signal for sure- especially at that distance. With the gimbal and other crap on the machine I think it would take a three foot mast to really get it up in the clear for any orientation.
Yes, you have to keep anything on the quad from blocking the antenna. I had problems at first with my battery blocking my signal when I would turn to come back. I would have a clear picture going out but when I turned back I could hardly see anything. I moved the antenna up much higher and don't have that problem now.
Kilby
Active Member
I hear this often and it makes me feel like something is wrong somewhere in my set up. I'm going to look into this again. I've worked on it a couple times over the last year and never got it to a point that I was happy with. I've replaced every bit of gear in the chain at one point or another and still never any further than 150 yds.
I'm wondering if maybe I need to get away from the airwave chip gear (ImmersionRC, Fat Shark) and try some other 5.8 stuff? Jackella, what gear are you using?
Macsgrafs
Active Member
Terry if you are using any closed loop aerial, that resistor must be taken off. A closed loop aerial is a DC short circuit, but not to RF (AC).
Ross
RCNut
Member
Im using a foxtech 200mw 5.8 GHz transmitter and an RC305 receiver. I have two home made circular polarised antennas - one a cloverleaf and the other a skew planar. Im getting 600 -800 meters line of sight but I do get some noise when there are trees in the way. Im just waiting on a second RC305 to arrive so I can build my ground station with an 8dB patch antenna and a eagle eye diversity receive I have here. If I can get a 1 km with that setup I'll be happy.
this is the stuff i'm using, TX on a seperate 800mah 3S lipo,rx rubber duck pointing up on a 6' pole stuck in the ground.
it worked well first flight.
http://www.foxtechfpv.com/58g-500mw-long-range-8ch-txrx-p-246.html
Range is plenty good enough and better than i thought.
i have a 200mw 5.8 TX coming next week for a plane,i'll let you know range and results it you want.