FPV Selfie!

[cgblack]

This will be the latest craze to sweep the internet ... FPV Selfie's!!



Now If I could just fly her I'd be happy. Just finished adding the following to my v1.1.1:

PZ0420 camera http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I0O79J8/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Neewer VTX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EFULQNG/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Neewer 7" LCD Monitor RX and DVR http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HUL961G/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Marco Polo locator http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MG5GRQ/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Unfortunately we're heading out to a soiree so I can't fly her until tomorrow.



The velcro is temporary until I'm comfortable with the setup.

Next I need to upgrade my main board and do the sawruth mod so I can add my iOSD mini.

 

[cgblack]

Well I went out for my maiden flight and it was a dismal failure. I can't post a video of it for two reasons:

1. And this is a new item on my preflight checklist ... Be sure to hit record on the FPV LCD DVR Monitor! The manual is horrific, and for some reason I thought (because of the Loop Record setting) that it was always recording. Nope! I needed to hit enter. Doh!

2. I took off under LOS and got her up to about 50 feet or so before looking at the monitor. No signal. I brought back in closer and I pretty much had to be within 20 feet to get any signal at all. Not exactly what I expected. I thought I would get a few hundred feet out of this setup.

So now I need to start debugging the setup from end to end. First I'm going to try on the ground distance tests without the motors, then with the motors, since I have the camera and VTX powered off of the Phantom's batteries. Then I'll try a few different frequencies, but I was out in the middle of nowhere, so I don't think it was an interference issues.

I'm considering upgraded antennas, etc. but I'm really discouraged by my first attempt. I know that 5.8 GHz is a very twitchy frequency but I had absolutely nothing disrupting the LOS for the signal, and other than nearby country road power lines, nothing else that could have been contributing to EMR interference.

Based on what you see of my setup, does anyone have any ideas on what is wrong?

Thank you all,
Graeme Black

 

[cgblack]

p.s. the Marco Polo locator just to the right is a passive device until you fire up the base station unit. It transmits a "wake up" signal to the locator to tell it to ping back. I made sure it was off and then turned it back on again, without activating the locator base station, so it was not causing any interference in the FPV setup.