Your thoughts about the mW output power

[kloner]

it is rock solid and creates zero problems with my gps. with 1.3 i couldn't get past 3 red blinks on a naza gps, when i swapped the 300mw 1.3 over to a 2.4 1000mw my gps locks in my house wihtin a few seconds. But the sold link, you can see through even a crappy setups static. i had a couple 5.8 setups that sucked at first and they just went static when in trouble. 2.4 reaches down behind stuff alot better

You'd be shocked at how simple a regular old ezuhf on the back of a radio is to use and how solid it is. no tracking necessary, i'm not sure on exact ranges, but i'll get you some on the zephyr in a couple days. it's 2.4 now too......... and ezuhf

rock solid. I've only done the one mile, but with the tx on low power (250mw) it reached that mile and never went below 95%, no tracking, with the antenna pointing into my truck cause was flying off monitor in there. all in my hand so can move the antennas polarity around, important when you have an rssi to watch, is how you get out of trouble.

 

[Jessestr]

Nice gear kloner!

Thinking of getting a Dragonlink anyways.. I got good and positive reactions about it but it seems to be plug'n'play for a 9X.
And also a lot cheaper to get it here in Europe.

I need MAX 10km with my dragonlink.. will that be possible?

Thanks

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Well, an interesting observation I made that might explain your problem:

When I first got the Vid tx/rx system, I tried it with the linear antennas. The reception when both were in the same room in my basement was good. But outside, it was pretty crappy. I would start to lose it just flying in my backyard.

Then when I put the cloverleafs on, I tested in the basement again, and it was bad even in the same room. I thought maybe I'd been had. But, when I took it outside and flew it, it was perfect.

I think the CP antennas don't like certain situations, but work well in the air.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

But do the UHF control systems have digital receivers with failsafe settings? That's the thing, the way my system is setup, I'd rather have digital failsafes.

If I simply turn off my Tx altogether, the Rx will signal the APM to RTL. Also, if the wire connection between the Rx and APM is lost, it will also RTL. It's fairly foolproof.

 

[kloner]

they promissed me 16km but i couldn't get more than line of sight out of it with a jr............ put it on that repeater and did a couple few thousand foot runs, but again, rssi all over the place. It could have been the osd, but man, something i just didn't like about it

the guy i sold mine too is putting it on a 9x, maybe that's the trick. the manual says it was made for the jr10 something or rather, plug and play

If you want to get really dissapointed, goto rcgroups and read the big dragonlink thread. Same people asking for help to no avail.

 

[MombasaFlash]

Hi there

I was recently checking the laws in my country about output power of video transmitters.. For private usage:
2.4Ghz is limited to 10mW
5.8Ghz is limited to 25mW..

Really what a joke is this.. What are your thoughts about it? It's everywhere in Europe like this.
Would you use a 200mW or 600mW transmitter when you are only allowed to use 25mW? What range could you possibly get with 25mW...

Thanks

I think you could safely say that nobody really pays much attention to the laws on rf power. It is also a widely held belief that having a good powerful transmitter is essential to good reception.

I am no radio expert but I do know that this is not the case. Massive transmitting power is not the primary key to healthy reception at a distance. Of course it will help but more important is the quality and sensitivity of the receiver antennae. That said, I could not guide you on what should be done. Somebody around here will be more informed.


EDIT: Ooops, didn't realise there was already three pages of this thread. Looks like lots of suggestions to help.

 

[kloner]

But do the UHF control systems have digital receivers with failsafe settings? That's the thing, the way my system is setup, I'd rather have digital failsafes.

If I simply turn off my Tx altogether, the Rx will signal the APM to RTL. Also, if the wire connection between the Rx and APM is lost, it will also RTL. It's fairly foolproof.

Yep, you can failsafe all 8channels if you want. everything but the newest addition multifun has return to home failsafe. Zeph is eagle tree osd pro, naza is naza

 

[kloner]

that is true, probably why the lawmate and immersion stuff work so good. ssasen had a post a while back i was following talking down anything over 500mw on any frequency, said it wasn't needed cause it made the noise floor rise like mad. Said high gain antennas and lower power is better than low gain antennas and high power cause of less interferrence. I just went through the digital brand as rmrc calls it vtx's and they were absolutely horrible, super high power but any little thing made it all suck. Got grainy fast. More junk from unexplainable things. Ssasen said something about the types of components inside

All that said, There was a post on fpvlab about the swr on the lawmate stock 2.4 whips, they were all below swr1 and they were all praising up and down how no wonder why there lawmate systems work so well. not modified, not tweaked, just bone stock gear. immersion and the smaller lawmate have built in or included power supplies. On my systems using core for power supplies, the radio/video all get along so much better than my rigs without. That power supply and where it sits is so important

 

[Jessestr]

I see much people that say it works flawlessly (dragonlink) but the no support seems bad to me. Kinda stuck on this. I really want the lawmate gear from TBS. But I need UHF.. but not that expensive as ezUHF

 

[kloner]

when i was waiting 4 months to get my dragon link, Mike was creating v.2 and shipped mine after announcing it. Guess what one i got, v.1

but, after following the thread that long, there were guys there that had sent there stuff in for repair and some for firmware upgrades that hadn't seen stuff they owned for 9 months. one guy had bought his 3 months before me and just got overlooked. the people that help in the thread are great, but the actual place as in you need service is boner. Mike can kiss my ***

REal dragonlink fanboys buy new stuff and sell there old ones on a regular basis just to keep up. i heard he finaly has a port on the tx now so you can do your own firmware updates, to me that'd be huge. The last update made it so flying two dragon links near eachother doesn't lock each other out. That kinda firmware

 

[Jessestr]

You know what. Let's forget about dragonlink. I'll try to find some more about RangeLink as Trappy suggested me. Else it will be the ezUHF. Will be $130 more than dragonlink but less **** if I understand you correctly.
And yes I'm selling my goggles. I'm reliefed (or how do you write it) that I'm going to sell it. So much money for such a small thing. Ok it's nice and enjoyable but a screen will do my job (a good screen).

 

[RTRyder]

it is rock solid and creates zero problems with my gps. with 1.3 i couldn't get past 3 red blinks on a naza gps, when i swapped the 300mw 1.3 over to a 2.4 1000mw my gps locks in my house wihtin a few seconds. But the sold link, you can see through even a crappy setups static. i had a couple 5.8 setups that sucked at first and they just went static when in trouble. 2.4 reaches down behind stuff alot better

I find that interesting, it's exactly the opposite of what I'm experiencing with 2.4 and 1.3 for video. I'm about ready to give up on the 2.4, even with the diversity RX there just seems to be too much crap being spewed in the 2.4 band around here for it to work. I do get video and it is pretty good until I get in the air and start gaining some altitude, then the interference starts creeping in. Considering that probably 60% or more of the houses in the neighborhood have wireless networking all hogging space in the 2.4 band I'm not at all surprised that 1.3 gives me a much cleaner and stronger signal. I'm actually kind of surprised the 2.4 radio systems work as well as they do with all the various frequencies flying around in the ether near population centers!

At first I thought maybe it was the core on the TBS Disco that was causing problems with the 2.4, I tried both Lawmate and Immersion vtx with CP antennas and still got garbage in the video stream while in flight so I swapped the video over to my plain jane F450 and got the same result. Out at the flying field it's much better up to about 400 to 500 feet out then the video starts to go to crap, again getting closer to houses that are probably radiating all kinds of 2.4 from who knows what.

Swapping over to my 1258 gear is video nirvana, clean crisp video and superior range especially with obstructions between TX and RX, too bad no one makes a diversity RX for 1.3. I guess I'll have to sell off the 2.4 stuff and use that to finance an Oracle box and another 1.3 RX.

Ken

 

[kloner]

that's weird, but i think i've seen that before in posts. i seen rmrc released a 2.3 band, is probably the work around

I'd hold of on the oracle and wait for the immersion 1.3 duo. it's coming soon. those duo are a whole different animal than the uno. uno is 500mw, duo is 3 watts. the switching is seamless between antennas, oracle has blinks from what ive seen. runs on up to 4s down to 2s, has lawmate and immersion channels

Too bad rmrc just ran a sale on tx's, i needed some but got 3 coming already. What 2.4 receiver do you have?

 

[RTRyder]

that's weird, but i think i've seen that before in posts. i seen rmrc released a 2.3 band, is probably the work around

I'd hold of on the oracle and wait for the immersion 1.3 duo. it's coming soon. those duo are a whole different animal than the uno. uno is 500mw, duo is 3 watts. the switching is seamless between antennas, oracle has blinks from what ive seen. runs on up to 4s down to 2s, has lawmate and immersion channels

Too bad rmrc just ran a sale on tx's, i needed some but got 3 coming already. What 2.4 receiver do you have?

Immersion 2.4 diversity, also have a pair of the 500mw Immersion vTX, one of the Lawmate 1000, and the 2.4 RX for the Dominator goggles. That was why I was really hoping that the 2.4 would work out, being able to use the goggles without having to lug a tripod with standalone RX, multiple antennas, cables, batteries for it all, etc, etc...


I guess I'll just use what I've got until the 1.3 Duo arrives, maybe he'll do an RX for the goggles as well although an 1.3 SPW antenna for the googles is probably unrealistic given the size it needs to be. I have a couple here, I think I'll screw one on the Doms just to see how ridiculous it would look!

Ken
Ken

 

[kloner]

hang onto a 2.4 500mw and the goggles, run the 2.4 out of the 1.3,,,, im doing 2.4 on 5.8 and it's perfect

Your gonna need a chin strap

 

[RTRyder]

hang onto a 2.4 500mw and the goggles, run the 2.4 out of the 1.3,,,, im doing 2.4 on 5.8 and it's perfect

Thats what I was doing with the 1.3, plugging a spare Immersion 5.8 into an output on the splitter and using the 5.8 RX in the goggles. Again, that problem of more "stuff" needed to get the job done, I think for now I'm just going to go back to the 5.8 gear and use the goggles with my mini-crosshair and the 5.8 Uno for the DVR when I have multiple multis out at the field. If I'm doing backpack FPV I can always dump the video out the jack on the side of the Doms and into the DVR from there, did that last weekend with the Disco and it worked out pretty good, just need a bigger backpack that I can fit the quad into along with everything else.

Ken

 

[kloner]

it is convienant that way....... nice small antennas, solid compact gear, no bs

 

[RTRyder]

So I decided to give the 2.4 another shot out at the field using the Immersion vTX and Diversity RX. Since I have the TBS Disco setup to swap the video TX to any of the frequencies I have TX for in a matter of a minute or less I figured it couldn't hurt to try and if it was a complete bust I had 1.3 and 5.8 TX standing by. Got to the field with it all set to go on 2.4, plugged in the diversity RX with a SPW on one side and a crosshair on the other, this time running the goggles off a direct wire to the RX. I have to say that it worked as well if not better than the 1.3 this time. Not sure what was different from last time other than the goggles being hardwired rather than getting the video over a wireless link. Maybe the RX for the goggles doesn't filter out the crap as well as the bigger diversity RX, I was able to go well over a half mile with the only interference being a little scrambling of the signal while almost overhead and the diversity switching back and forth till the Disco moved out of the null of the SPW.

Here at the house I was test flying with just the goggles using the internal 2.4 RX and couldn't get more than maybe 50 feet horizontally and vertically before the signal went to crap, had to be all the wireless internet routers throwing off too much garbage in the 2.4 spectrum for the goggles to be able to deal with it most likely. I never did try the internal 2.4 RX again while at the field so I don't know if it would have worked any better there, I do know it seems to work fine with a hardwired connection. I'm heading out tomorrow AM to do a couple test flights with my repaired Cinestar APV hex, going to take the Disco along and try hanging a 5.8 tx off the back of the 2.4 diversity and see how that looks in the goggles using the internal 5.8 RX.

Ken

 

[kloner]

goggles are 250mw of power, same as a uno. the diversity rx is 3 watts, that's why the cost. it's a $270 receiver, that's why.

mine went 7000 feet in the zII flawlessly yesterday, took it down to see how low shed go, got 20 feet. felt like it was dragin on the ground at the time as you look over all the numbers and pray. only used the 3 turn helicals and crosshairs, all the low gain stuff. my tracker lost a pan servo right off the bat so didn't get to try the lawmate rx, but i'm told it's the one

 

[RTRyder]

goggles are 250mw of power, same as a uno. the diversity rx is 3 watts, that's why the cost. it's a $270 receiver, that's why.

mine went 7000 feet in the zII flawlessly yesterday, took it down to see how low shed go, got 20 feet. felt like it was dragin on the ground at the time as you look over all the numbers and pray. only used the 3 turn helicals and crosshairs, all the low gain stuff. my tracker lost a pan servo right off the bat so didn't get to try the lawmate rx, but i'm told it's the one

I got a chance to fly with the 2.4 setup on the Disco and a 5.8 link to the goggles, it worked OK but wasn't nearly as good as the other day using a hardwired connection. I could have swapped over to the cable to see if got any better but I was traveling light and the groundstation was sitting on the roof of the car, tying in via cable would have meant standing next to the car for the flight so I didn't bother.

The main purpose of today's outing was to get some stick time on the Cinestar 6 and get it dialed in again for some upcoming video work. For the first time I setup an FPV cam on the gimbal platform and flew by the goggles. I started with a 100mw Immersion, that lasted one flight before I swapped to a 600mw, much better signal at a distance! It's strange flying FPV when the camera is on a fully stabilized camera mount, hard to tell what the multi is doing. Good thing the Cinestar is BIG and the WKM keeps it nice and steady, being able to see what the camera is pointed at is much better than guesstimating where its aimed from the ground. Not used to the view staying level flying FPV though...

Ken