Antenna mod question

[Elysion]

Hey folks,

I recently modded my Phantom 3's RC to attach 3rd party antennas to it and now I am a little concerned.

Yesterday I removed the antennas to see if reattaching the antennas would increase the transmission quality, just to make sure everything was set up correctly (and it was) and flew her afterwards.
I was a little disappointed and confused at the same time, while I managed to gain an additional 200m, the RC signal was dropping and flactuating alot more than the HD signal, which I think had never before, it heavily depended on the position of the aircraft (legs facing at me) and the antennas position (look@picture)

While of course the new flat antennas need to be pointed with the flat side to the plane and that higher dbi means more intereference being picked up, I still think it is strange that the RC dropped out several times, while the HD transmission was stable.

That leads me to my second question, do you think that I damaged my TX? I read somewhere that you can damage your transmitter when operating without antennas? Could that be the reason for the strange behavior? (I am not saying bad, because I managed to get an additional 200meters)

Let me tell you, that I am living in a very urbanized area with alot (and I mean it) of interferences, nearly all of the standard 12 channels were showing huge red bars, but I had the channel hack.


Any help is greatly appreciated.

[The used antennas are Alfa M25 btw]

Cheers-
Elysion

 

[dirtybum]

How long did you have the controller turned on with no antennas

 

[Elysion]

How long did you have the controller turned on with no antennas

20 seconds, maybe a little more.

 

[Elysion]

[UPDATE]

After observing the comparable (same place, same altitude, nearly same direction) healthydrones logs, I came to the conclusion that the transmitter seems to be okay, I am getting about the same range with the mod, if not better, I also noticed that the signal quality was highly related to the aircrafts position as stated above (antennas in the legs).

I will fly today and keep you guys updated.

 

[Mark The Droner]

I'd say yes, there's a chance you damaged the transmitter (and I'm speaking from experience).

 

[Elysion]

I'd say yes, there's a chance you damaged the transmitter (and I'm speaking from experience).

Thanks for the reply, how did you come to the conclusion that your transmitter was damaged? (Talking about the "red flags")

 

[Mark The Droner]

I was kind of a noob back then. This is a little embarassing but...

At some point after having done the mod (and this wasn't the first flight after the mod), I went out and had everything perfect, I even calibrated, hovered, got the satellites, etc., everything perfect, flew it out maybe 800 feet nice and slow and easy and then to my horror I realized I forgot to screw in the control antenna! D'oh! So now I have to fly the **** thing back with no transmitter antenna and the transmitter meanwhile is beeping at me - real loud and persistent. Well I got it back but my face was pretty red. I never was happy with my range after that (or before that actually), so I bought an upgraded transmitter for $50 on eBay and never looked back.

I also bought an EMF meter which is probably overkill. I also bought seven really cheap little three inch Chinese linear antennas for $4 something each and always make sure I have an antenna screwed in to every connection no matter what 24/7.

 

[Elysion]

I was kind of a noob back then. This is a little embarassing but...

At some point after having done the mod (and this wasn't the first flight after the mod), I went out and had everything perfect, I even calibrated, hovered, got the satellites, etc., everything perfect, flew it out maybe 800 feet nice and slow and easy and then to my horror I realized I forgot to screw in the control antenna! D'oh! So now I have to fly the **** thing back with no transmitter antenna and the transmitter meanwhile is beeping at me - real loud and persistent. Well I got it back but my face was pretty red. I never was happy with my range after that (or before that actually), so I bought an upgraded transmitter for $50 on eBay and never looked back.

I also bought an EMF meter which is probably overkill.

Alright just to make things clear, this wasn't a Phantom 3, right? AFAIK the P3 RC doesn't give any warnings, I don't even know if there is some warning at all, and I am not using any external boosters, only the stock internal transmitters.
But from the way you described it, it seems to me that you were unsatisfied with the range in general, you also flew it, which was not the case here, I just stepped away a few meters to see if the signal drops. Anyways, we will see when I fly it, got plenty of comparable logs (HealthyDrones ftw )

 

[Mark The Droner]

Yeah, it was a P2V transmitter, and the beeping may have been a remote control battery issue. But the bottom line is, you don't want to run your transmitter without an antenna ever because there is always a risk of burning out the transmitter. Good luck!

 

[Elysion]

Yeah, it was a P2V transmitter, and the beeping may have been a remote control battery issue. But the bottom line is, you don't want to run your transmitter without an antenna ever because there is always a risk of burning out the transmitter. Good luck!

Yeah you're right, thanks for your input