FPVLR - Not too impressed - Penetration?

[damoncooper]

Did you guys contact the vendor(s)? Just curious what they had to say?

 

[deathcharge]

Did you guys contact the vendor(s)? Just curious what they had to say?

I'm going to ask about a refund. One thing I can say, communication is speedy with him.
I'm sure this kit works in the right conditions; it's just not useful or practical for my intended purposes; flying from my backyard surrounded by trees.

 

[Jbundy63]

I'm going to ask about a refund. One thing I can say, communication is speedy with him.
I'm sure this kit works in the right conditions; it's just not practical for my intended purposes; flying from my backyard surrounded by trees.

Best of luck! Let us know how everything works out.

 

[mick74]

Simple, Get the $20 windsurfer. It will go as far as your battery will let you. Those other expensive ones.... Just smoke and mirrors.

 

[Bret Lucas]

FPVLR V2 in my experience is solid to any distance as battery is your limiting factor. I now no longer concern myself with reception. It's a given.

 

[Jbundy63]

FPVLR V2 in my experience is solid to any distance as battery is your limiting factor. I now no longer concern myself with reception. It's a given.

Bret are you flying in an area such as heavy trees or obstacles where it obstructs signal between the controller to phantom?

 

[Bret Lucas]

It depends on the job I'm doing, but yes I have experienced environments with a lot of trees in the way, in this situation I fire up the 3000mW boosters which I only use if working in this type of area.

 

[aaronrivera]

Windsurfer is rillly worth it and best upgrade i hv done. Next was the cheap fpv solution, good for sunny days

 

[RF Guy]

Folks- we are on 2.4ghz here. Water eats 2.4. Think of it like light. Yeah, 100X power might result in some penetration through a forest....but just a little. As well, 2.4ghz looses a lot of signal through just water-laden air. It's microwaves. Put a windsurfer on it and put your effort into getting yourself up and in the clear so you have a line of sight path to the phantom. No obstructions. anything in the path will severely reduce the signal.

 

[Wacker2611]

My experience is that nothing will get you through trees/buildings past a certain point. You need to go higher.....

 

[phantom13flyer]

My dbs is amazing and just added a battery mod , 5 miles 1 way . It's freaking impressive . Plus the quick release mount . Dbs Mods can not be beat. Maybe check all the cables . Did you do the modification yourself?

 

[FatTwoTonTony]

Well I feel ur pain yup I got sucked into the ******** too DBSMods is the same

I disagree I doubled my distant and penetration was what I was looking for and I got it with DBS! I have alot of hills and heavy trees all around my house providing lots of obstacles for my signal.I am sitting in a valley at 121 metres above sea level and a hill behind me that 191 metres high. In every direction I am encountering thick forest and large hills. I did many test flights pre DBS mod and the before and after was and is dramatic. Flying the same routes with similar conditions and I have always doubled the distance and sometimes tripled it since installing the DBS mod. I know many say different and really that surprises me but I can only speak for what I have experienced. One example is a coworker lives on the other side of this huge hill behind my house. He is about 2 kms away on the other side of this big hill and also down in a valley. Without the DBS mod I would fly to the top of the hill and just start to crest the top and at 600 metres I would lose signal. I tried this route many times at different heights, standing on my deck standing in the back of my truck etc. Always at about 600 metres loss of signal. I installed the DBS mod, first day I used it i flew to his home and dropped into his back yard down to maybe 60 feet. Its an amazing Mod and works well for me and certainly I would buy it again in a heartbeat!

 

[JoeyJoe]

I installed the $300 boosted kit and I gained a little but nowhere near what I was expecting. Stock I was getting around 6,500 feet max and video dropped out. Flying the same route with the boosted setup I gained only an extra 1,000 feet! Flying off in the other direction I gained zero! Given I am flying out of my 2 acre semi unobstructed backyard that is surrounded by quite heavily wooded area I was thinking these boosters could power through the trees but I'm finding out this is not the case at all. Maybe I was expecting too much with all the trees. This kit may be great in the wide open but for the typical user flying out of their back yard even in a country setting like mine; I think people are going to be disappointed. Seems to me these kits are for people who want to get in their cars' and seek out middle of nowhere locations to fly these long distances which is what I wanted to avoid.

Now I'm thinking should I have went with the DBS antenna, can anyone confirm dbs has better tree penetration?

The guy from FPVLR.COM has been saying for months now that there is little to nothing to be gained by using amps since his V2 antenna release.
Did you not see those posts?

Other than that, I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment. There is nothing much worse (in our hobby that is) than having high expectations only to realize or feel like you wasted double your money.

 

[phantom13flyer]

That really sucks you guys aren't getting amazing results. The DBS antenna has opened up whole new kind of flying experience. There is nothing more exciting than flying 4-5 miles away. And I usually fly out my back porch with lots of trees and interference. Change out the cables on the outside and if that doesn't improve your range change out the inside cables. Or there could be some other hardware issue. But with both the DBS and FPVLR you should be out flying the battery with a range of 4+ miles.

 

[JoeyJoe]

That really sucks you guys aren't getting amazing results. The DBS antenna has opened up whole new kind of flying experience. There is nothing more exciting than flying 4-5 miles away. And I usually fly out my back porch with lots of trees and interference. Change out the cables on the outside and if that doesn't improve your range change out the inside cables. Or there could be some other hardware issue. But with both the DBS and FPVLR you should be out flying the battery with a range of 4+ miles.

For sure. A bad connection can't be ruled out.

 

[UnknownCaller]

You won't get better penetration with a DBS. The V2 is a more powerful antenna. If you aren't getting penetration with the V2 you won't get better results with the DBS.

 

[DiluxEdition]

You'd be surprised how much signal can go through trees/ buildings. With a 3d Printed windsurfer I designed myself, I was able to fly behind and below large buildings while I was on the roof. The signal had to go through 20 floors of concrete and misc... I also flew 1500feet away below a dense tree line just above the ground in the summer (full leaves).

The latest firmwares all messed this up. Gotta go back to 1.1.9... Now its more like 1000ft through trees, haven't flown behind the building yet...

 

[FatTwoTonTony]

You won't get better penetration with a DBS. The V2 is a more powerful antenna. If you aren't getting penetration with the V2 you won't get better results with the DBS.

Certainly I cannot speak to the V2 but I can say the DBS has greatly improved my distance flying with lots of interference

 

[JoeyJoe]

The signal had to go through 20 floors of concrete and misc

Hard to believe but if you say so.

 

[Wacker2611]

You'd be surprised how much signal can go through trees/ buildings. With a 3d Printed windsurfer I designed myself, I was able to fly behind and below large buildings while I was on the roof. The signal had to go through 20 floors of concrete and misc... I also flew 1500feet away below a dense tree line just above the ground in the summer (full leaves).

The latest firmwares all messed this up. Gotta go back to 1.1.9... Now its more like 1000ft through trees, haven't flown behind the building yet...

Yes, I get that. I also use a windsurfer and I think they're brilliant. A friend of mine also has the dbs mod installed and while there is no doubt that he can go quite a bit further than me in open areas , a) he suffers from acute battery anxiety on every flight and b) it's not that much better than my windsurfer in less than ideal flying conditions. Not saying this is generally representative, just my experience.