Highcloud said:
Hi, I'm new to this site so bear with me. I've read through most of the tech about range as 300M FPV limit was a bit off putting when selecting a PV. I have one on the way all the same and plan to extend range. Not a critsm, but an observation, and that is there is a lot of guessing of how the repeater is working. Would DJI not be able to confirm how they have configured their repeater ? I guess they would obviously invalidate warranty for any modified equipment, but it would take a lot of experimentation and guess work out of the equation. Do DJI monitor this site at all or have an interest in it?
The work done to date is really useful and will save me a lot of time figuring it out, just curious about how DJI view this forum and the excellent work going on.
The 300 meter range estimate is a VERY accurate average FPV range estimate for the Phantom 2 vision when used in an urban environment and can extend far beyond that in a very rural area completely free of other wireless and electrical interference. This is all with the stock setup.
Those people having dramatically lesser experiences than that mainly fall into one of three categories.
1) they are not orienting both the transmitter and wifi repeater antennas correctly during flight.
The antenna on the control as rule of thumb should be pointing straight up and the flat side of the wifi repeater should be pointing at the Phantom. That also means you should not be flying directly above or behind yourself.
2) they are not flying their phantom within direct line of sight and allowing other obstacles to get between you.
That means the further away you fly the higher you should go to ensure perfect line of sight to your phantom with no obstructions. Also no flying directly above you at very high altitude do to the radiation pattern of the antenna on the phantom and transmitter. The phantom should be at least 50 feet away from you for a good high altitude flight.
3) The user in question may have a faulty transmitter or disconnected antenna wire or problem with the wifi range extender not being linked properly to the camera causing a direct and reduced range connection.
With the surgery needed on the controller to perform firmware updates some have accidentally loosened or disconnected the internal antenna wire. Also sometime you simply just get a faulty controller. In some other cases they may not be switching to FCC mode. Also doing firmware update without making sure your controller is up to date and not accidentally switched back to CE mode in the software can also be problematic result in either reduced range or loss of control.
For dramatically reduced FPV problems that is not do to antenna direction problems it may be that you're connecting directly to the camera wifi and not the visions. This generally shouldn't happen as out of the box the cameras wifi should be invisible with only the repeaters ssid being there. Rebinding the camera to the repeater may be a solution to that.
With all that being said. If you get a Phantom 2 vision that is working as it should (which would be the majority) you will absolutely get either slightly below or slightly above the expected average flying FPV range of 300 meters or 975 feet (that distance includes both altitude and distance away combined). Myself and many others on this forum have gotten over 1,000 feet away while at altitudes of over 300 feet without a problem. This will reduce if you're not using your phantom in a park: also the lower the preview quality you set (live feed) the further you will be able to travel.
And one last thing, as good as a properly functioning stock Phantom 2 vision is for FPV range, using an adapter and adding a high gain directional antenna can easily double or triple the range of the stock wifi repeater for FPV range. The range increase will vary depending on antenna. The controller antenna can also be changed as well tho most people haven't felt the need to.