Fat Shark Predator Range Issue

[Glockindahaus]

Im wondering if this is normal or if I need to tweak something but Ive been flying in an open industrial block near my house and the FatShark range is deplorable. Yesterday was clear and light winds. I had line of sight with the Phantom and my goggles started to loose video (snow) about a block away. I might as well fly line of sight if thats the best Im going to get. I changed out the antennas for better reception and I dont understand if this is a limitation of the Fatshark transmitter or the environment. Am I better off with UHF? Or just higher (600?) mW's.

 

[jgerlitz]

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Yeah...I didn't like the range of my Fatshark goggles and 250mw transmitter when I first bought them either. It sorta seems it's a hit or miss on how well the reception is going to be.

However, since I bought cloverleaf antennas, it has been about 70% better. I still get the occasional static but it's WAY better and less frequent. I purchased the ibCRAZY 5.8 Blubeam antennas from www.getFPV.com

I would of purchased the immersionRC ones but they were out of stock. The bluebeams are a great choice though and many prefer them over immersionRC.

I have no complaints!

Happy flying.

 

[Glockindahaus]

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Yeah...I didn't like the range of my Fatshark goggles and 250mw transmitter when I first bought them either. It sorta seems it's a hit or miss on how well the reception is going to be.

However, since I bought cloverleaf antennas, it has been about 70% better. I still get the occasional static but it's WAY better and less frequent. I purchased the ibCRAZY 5.8 Blubeam antennas from http://www.getFPV.com

I would of purchased the immersionRC ones but they were out of stock. The bluebeams are a great choice though and many prefer them over immersionRC.

I have no complaints!

Happy flying.

I picked up these "Cloverleaf circular polarized" ones on ebay. The ones with the blue stems. Honestly I think they probably have the same setup as the ImmersionRC ones, but cant say for sure. And they werent cheap at $50!

Rather then spend another $50-$75 on other antennas, Im going to do a test with the stock "ruber duckie" antennas, flying the same exact route as the cloverleaf and see if I get the same interference. I'm really wondering if there isnt some kind of RF interference happening from some business park buidlings that might be running 5.8GHz security cameras?

Do you know what if any difference there is in the "RX" or "TX" antenna except for one being longer then the other? I wonder if I swapped them by mistake...

 

[mroberts]

Double check you've got your channels set correctly. I was getting terrible range until I double checked the channels and found I'd misread one of the channel codings and the tx and rx were on different channels. I didn't twig straight away because I was getting a picture.

 

[Glockindahaus]

Double check you've got your channels set correctly. I was getting terrible range until I double checked the channels and found I'd misread one of the channel codings and the tx and rx were on different channels. I didn't twig straight away because I was getting a picture.

Thats a great point. Checking...