I went with this one on camera:
http://www.radiolabs.com/products/wirel ... -800mw.php
This is the amp I use. It is a good amp, 800mw for 11b, 500mw for 11g, mine is testing out at 350mw.
Used a UBEC to power it.
Which UBEC? not all are created equal and exactly what voltage?.I went ahead and took off the big heavy right angle adapter and soldered the cable directly to the board. Everything appears to work. All the lights come on including the red tx light when the wifi is turned to on on the camera so i think it is working ok.
Blinking lights mean very little to me. Did you test it before making the (rather significant) modifications? How did you test your mods? Did you at least attach a heatsink to the PCB GP? I've not changed mine out because I figured there could be a reason they precision CNC a solid piece of aluminium rather than use injection mold plastic. But I could be wrong.
The problem is that it is not too obvious if it is helping with my range. I am still lucky to get 1000feet with an 8dbi tplink omni on repeater and a little 2dbi antenna on the amp. I thought increasing the output power of the camera tx from 100mw to 800mw would make an obvious difference.
Without getting too deep into it, antennas will make much more difference than power. When factoring in power you need to consider a LOT more than rated mw. To begin with, my camera varies between 100 and 125mw and the amp 300 to 375mw. To double the theoretic (potential) range you would need to quadruple the power (400 to 500mw), even then, in real world testing (considering other factors like noise, ...) you are likely to only see a 75% improvement. You also changed the antenna from a custom (with likely VERY good SWR) to a 2dbi nub (likely useless) essentially defeating any potential gains.
I need to be more scientific to see if it is helping. I tried the range in my apartment through walls and doors without and without the amp turned on. There wasn't much difference. Walked down the hallway until the signal cut and got about the same distance down the hallway.
is there is way to measure the rf signal without spending any more money
Not that I'm aware of.The little bar indicator on the DJI app is too qualitative. Seems like there should be an app to measure wifi signal strength more quantitatively.
There are apps for some laptop adapters, just not sure how to test the P2V with them.I would need to connect directly two the P2V rather than to the repeater i presume. Unfortunately, i don't have a rf meter like Immersion RC makes.
Interestingly, i am not using an attenuator
The radio labs site clearly states in big red letters that the max input is 20dbm (100mw) or the amp will be damaged. The camera is putting out in excess of 100mw. Even if the amp is not damaged, it's clipping. it's like talking into your phone with a megaphone, the noise level will go through the roof.on the amp and so far not getting too warm. It does warm up slightly when i am downloading a vid from the sd card but in flight it stays remarkably cool.
What type of thermocouple are you using to track the amp's temperature? The propwash seems to help a lot.
Unless my amp is damaged or if i screwed something up when i soldered the cable on i would say the improvement is a bit disappointing. I am going to try it with the 5dbi antenna on the amp and see if that helps.
I agree with usign a better antenna. I can share my own experience. As I've said in the past, the antennas make all the difference. Using antennas alone, on the stock amps I did 3.2km, adding the amp got me to 3.89km (might have gone further but control dropped) that said, I doubt very much that the amp would have gotten me over 5km (would not have doubled my range).
In general I would say my range has been poor compared to what you guys are all claiming. With the stock setup i was lucky to get 600feet range.
Amplifying the stock setup would only net you probably 400 feet (for a total of 1000 feet). You need to work on your antennas first. My stock setup worked to 1500ft and if I flew sideways I could (depending on conditions) get to 1800 to a max of 2200 feet. Simply changing antennas got me to 10,000 feet (3.2km) (under good conditions) and over 5,000 feet even in my neighborhood (challenging conditions). Adding the amp increases my neighborhood range to about 8,000 feet (from 5,000).
I am tempted to try the 2.4ghz LHCP pinwheels that FPVLR sells but not sure i want to spend $60 more dollars to find out it doesn't help much.
A good (matched) antenna configuration on each side will net improved results. Of course how much improvement is a YMMV thing.
