I flew out to 2000m today and still had relatively good picture quality. Similar to the images shown by ravecreative recenlty, I bent my cloverleaf antenna pointing down a bit and I believe (cannot quanitfy with any level of sceince) that this helped a bit. The problem I am wrestling with a bit and will continue to focus on is the "directional" aspects to my setup...as also like in ravecreatives images, my cloverleaf point off the back of my P2. So when I fly out to 2000m (I am US but use meters as my iOSD reports meters) and still have a relatively good image, certainly good enough to see iOSD readings easily, when I rotate 180 degrees to fly back toward home, my picture quality degrades. You might say fly home backwards, and I do that sometimes, but for the sake of my video, it is more customary to film with the camera on the leading edge of the direction being flown than to drag from behind.
I will try to fly a bit higher today, say 250m and see if I can make it out further, to say 2500m. I have had no hint of failsafe/return to home yet at 1500-2000m as I often do with my P2V. I will start to document and chart my distance and altitutde and picture quality relative % soon.
DISCLAIMER: RANGE RAGE is NOT for the faint of heart. I had my first CRASH in at least 100 flights with my P2V and a handful with this P2. I was flying the P2 back to me into a strong wind. Last reading that I could see clearly was 650m out (I was having some video issues with the P2 flying toward me to the iOSD was intermittent). I was flying home into a steady wind, and while battery should not have been an issue, I was still concerned. I was descedning a bit to try to get into lesser winds (wishful thinking maybe and pilot error) as I was also flying toward me and lost visual (bad idea #2 as I should have kept my eyes on the P2). The last thing I saw on screen was it still appearing to be decending while moving toward me long after I had stopped bringing it down with the controller. Then I had no video, no visual, nothing. **** controller off and did all the normal return to home but to no evail. I had to cross to small ranch barbed wire fence lines (a good way to get bit or shot) into neighbroing ranches that we do not know over two differnet trips to find the craft ultimately just 450m away (seems close until you are in heavy trees and brush). So after over an hour of searching I did find it at the base of a live oak tree, upside down on the ground, two broken props, hair-line crack in one of the arms, battery thrown out from P2, and only some minor structural damage to the gimbal--it was bent up at the base and rubber damper points and while functioning ok, will be replaced. Video, OSD, and camera still ok though the brand new goPro3+ has some cosmetic damage to the rubber edge around the lens but seems to function fine.
I will post some most excellent footage once I hone by video editing skills to cut this clip from the end of a long video. Sad, but all is well that ends well. There was a long period where I thought I would never find the downed P2...
Anyone have any ideas on my crash? There should be little/no RF interference out here and I have never noticed an issue before. The video clearly shows it descending while moving towards me. I still had 26% battery left when I retrieved a checked. Not sure why it continued to descend as it moved toward me...
