long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antennas

max

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I recently installed stage 3 FPVLR antennas on my bird. I have mixed feelings about them... Signal within ~ 1 mile seems improved, with pretty much equal coverage irrespective of bird orientation. However, max range may actually be lower than befoew. I've hit 7000ft with stage 2, and so far have barely made it past a mile with stage 3. Too few flights so far to know for sure though, and I also updated firmware at the same time as installing the antennas, which might have something to do with it? Battery life might be significantly lower as well, but again too early to know for sure (might have been the wind). Also response seems just little more sluggish (again, might be firmware related). I will probably do stage 4 at some point (knowing me haha). Anyway, here is a flight from today that I feel would have been much harder without stage 3. This is because I was able to use 640x480 preview (normally use 320), which enabled me to see the stuff I was chasing much better.

Uncut flight below.
Highlights:
1:45 - flock of birds just floating....
4:45 - chasing pelicans
6:30 - chasing paddle boarder
9:30 - chasing boat
10:45 - here I had a little panic as I have 5 min battery left and it seemed like the bird was moving sooo slowly to shore
13:10 - arrive home with app showing 2 min flight left. Was going to land, but aborted for a hand cath as the wind was too strong

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIQ57VlPTT4[/youtube]
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

seems like a nice flight,
are you using washers on your cables for stage 3?
my understanding is that washers should be removed to allow threads to stick out more on the plastic mounts which are pretty thick.
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

Wow quite an adventure! Any idea how far away from your transmitter you managed to get?
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

Roseto75 said:
seems like a nice flight,
are you using washers on your cables for stage 3?
my understanding is that washers should be removed to allow threads to stick out more on the plastic mounts which are pretty thick.
I removed the washers per Tony's instructions (although I was going to anyway, as the issue of the thick mount was pretty evident)
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

rbhamilton said:
Wow quite an adventure! Any idea how far away from your transmitter you managed to get?
Probably around 4500 ft. Just a guess though
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

Nice view of Balboa pier
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

Very nice! It seems you came a little scary close at 13:20..


Were you fighting a head wind on your way back to land?
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

worldsoutro said:
Very nice! It seems you came a little scary close at 13:20..
yes.. that was pretty close :)

worldsoutro said:
Were you fighting a head wind on your way back to land?
somewhat.. looked like a strong wind parallel to the shore. note the flag on top of the building at the end of the pier, best seen at 6:30
 
Re: long flight over ocean chasing stuff with stage 3 antenn

Cool video, max. I like to do the same kind of ocean flights. Nice takeoff location-- very stealthy. ;) I may have to launch from there sometime too. Thanks for sharing.
 

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