Boost Your Range - And Build it Tonight !

A word about SWR from an Extra Class ham. Any changes this makes in SWR are minor. I'm not doing anything to the radiating element. Putting a reflector behind the radiating element may lower the resonant frequency by a hair, but not enough to notice, and certainly not enough to affect the transmitter.. And this doesn't have anything to do with flyaways. It gives you greater control range for practically free.

But to show how outside factors can affect things, I tried to fly the same path again tonight with the stage 2 kit from FPVLR. I only got out to 3500 feet before losing signal. This, after going 4800 feet in the same spot over the weekend. The reason?



Water vapor. Something close to 100% humidity after rain today. You can see the mist coming up. And it absorbs microwave frequencies.

So, something to keep in mind about any distance test.
 

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Tails_Up I bet you were a little put out when you put all that time into adding antennas, and then came up with less performance. Also bet you went right to thinking how you could back step to where you were before doing all that work.

If it's any help (and it should be) there are some with using the same stage 2 kit, and booster app, with 8000 and 10,000 feet numbers. Those are just a couple I know of. I'm sure Tony knows of others with impressive numbers.

Btw, with everything stock and just the booster app I went 4200ft. Yesterday and today it was all I could do to make it in the 1900ft range. It's 11:25pm my time now and I'm going to make a pass in a little bit, and I hoping to see an improvement simply based on less activity and cooler temps, but worse humidity. I'll post again in 1/2hr or so.
 
Tails_Up said:
A word about SWR from an Extra Class ham. Any changes this makes in SWR are minor. I'm not doing anything to the radiating element. Putting a reflector behind the radiating element may lower the resonant frequency by a hair, but not enough to notice, and certainly not enough to affect the transmitter.. And this doesn't have anything to do with flyaways. It gives you greater control range for practically free.

But to show how outside factors can affect things, I tried to fly the same path again tonight with the stage 2 kit from FPVLR. I only got out to 3500 feet before losing signal. This, after going 4800 feet in the same spot over the weekend. The reason?



Water vapor. Something close to 100% humidity after rain today. You can see the mist coming up. And it absorbs microwave frequencies.

So, something to keep in mind about any distance test.
Click to expand...

One way to remove the variable of humidity (and possibly some other variables) would be to fly stock to a distance where control signal/FPV is lost, then add the coffee tins immediately to see if the signals are regained. Given how quick it is to slot the tins on/off this test should be possible.
 
flyNfrank said:
Tails_Up I bet you were a little put out when you put all that time into adding antennas, and then came up with less performance. Also bet you went right to thinking how you could back step to where you were before doing all that work.

If it's any help (and it should be) there are some with using the same stage 2 kit, and booster app, with 8000 and 10,000 feet numbers. Those are just a couple I know of. I'm sure Tony knows of others with impressive numbers.

Btw, with everything stock and just the booster app I went 4200ft. Yesterday and today it was all I could do to make it in the 1900ft range. It's 11:25pm my time now and I'm going to make a pass in a little bit, and I hoping to see an improvement simply based on less activity and cooler temps, but worse humidity. I'll post again in 1/2hr or so.
Click to expand...

Only added 250ft so not what I expected.
 
First, you sheet of metal on this reflector is not tick enough to properly increase reflection of incoming signals. Second this is not a linear signal to really improve this design you need a round dish reflector. A rectangle reflector will still give some improvement but it would also need to reflect the top and bottom of the range extender. Im currently working on a similar mod for P2V non-plus, i made 3 prototype up to now, the best one was a rectangle and gave me improvement from 250m stuck FPV to 498m FPV with rectangle reflector behind extender. My next step is a dish reflector out of 1/16 sheet of alu witch in theory should grant me another 35-50% of increase in range...This combined with the software mod for P2V+ would probably increase P2V+ range by a LOT !..
 
Have you tried something like a small mixing bowl they sell at the Target or Ikea? I would think that would give you exactly what you need in the shape you need.
 
I'm quite surprised more people haven't tried this mod. My stock setup got me to 1800 feet out at 150-200 feet altitude. Running either of the 2 booster apps gets me to 2400-2800 feet out. My RC control limit has cut off sometimes as early as 1600 feet to >2800 feet. My goal has been to just reach 3000 feet distance control with FPV.

I decided to try this mod out since it didn't require me doing any soldering or opening up either the transmitter or the extender. Truth be told, I didn't do the mod exactly as Tails_up did it. I didn't have any coffee tins lying around so I proceeded to look around for a substitute that I could try. I was looking for a size that wouldn't interfere with my IPad mini mount and still allow me to adjust both the control antenna and the angle of the extender. I happen to find an empty 7 oz Calumet baking powder container. Cut it in half and used one half for the 5.8 ghz antenna. The other half I spilt again and taped together to use for the extender. Wasn't happy with the reflectivity of the existing lining so I used aluminum HVAC tape I had left over from my Droneexpert GPS mod (which also works great by the way) and tested my bird out today.

I only tested today using FPVFlyer's Booster App. The results were nothing short of amazing for my bird. I fly in an area with a moderate amount of 2.4/5.8 gHz wi-fi signals and I was able to fly out to 4150-4250 feet at 250 feet altitude with intact RC control and FPV! The first test I lost RC control and RTH initiated with stuttering FPV at a range of 4250 feet. The second test got me to 4150 feet with loss of FPV. Since the furthest I was able to get with the booster app prior to this test was 2400 feet, I have to attribute the additional 1850 feet to this mod. For the cost of pennies and 5 minutes of my time, I increased my usable range by >75%. I wish my financial investments had such a great return. I had done something similar to increase my range on old routers in the past, but it didn't occur to me to try it on the phantom remote control until I read this post.
 
It sounds great and i'll certainly be giving it a go too. Would you mind posting pictures of how the mod looks on the control unit please?
 
Looks just like the OP's pictures, just a smaller radius due to smaller cylinder used. I also created a larger notch on the reflector for the 5.8 gHz antenna so I didn't have to use any tape to keep it in place.
 
I wanted to try this real quick but didn't have the right materials on hand, so I took an aluminum foil baking dish and cut out my own "dishes". Just plain aluminum foil as you can see in the picture. What a freaking difference! I have problems getting past 1000 ft and maintaining a signal, but this time, I was cruising around at 1200 ft, no signal loss. This mod is a God-send and many thanks to who came up with it and posted it. May your Phantom fly forever! But now I'm going to make something more permanent. Not quite sure what I'll do yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
 

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JWarren said:
I wanted to try this real quick but didn't have the right materials on hand, so I took an aluminum foil baking dish and cut out my own "dishes". Just plain aluminum foil as you can see in the picture. What a freaking difference! I have problems getting past 1000 ft and maintaining a signal, but this time, I was cruising around at 1200 ft, no signal loss. This mod is a God-send and many thanks to who came up with it and posted it. May your Phantom fly forever! But now I'm going to make something more permanent. Not quite sure what I'll do yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Click to expand...
Sorry to tell you that JWarren, but your DIY may work (roughly and in certain conditions) but is not very serious.
At such high frequencies, be sure that antennas must be well designed and built to ensure a proper behaviour (SWR, beam, ...) and gain.
I'm afraid that your reflector could bring you some unexpected side effects by interfering with the wifi.
Your reflector clearly reflects to any/all directions (while waves should be transmitted straight forward); it must be clean and flat.
Please, take care when using it at far distances, depending on the environment, it could bring your Phantom in a fly-away situation :(

Should you consider to improve the reflector, take a look at the StrikeTeam proposition or at the one I made (in french but easy to understand) : https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1zw214h456a0ew/ReflecteurParabolique.pdf
At my first trial, in very cloudy conditions, 4.400 ft reached... and I flew back because of video losses of connection, not the Tx control !
Good luck ;)
 
I think I made ​​pretty well, but I tried it on a wifi access point antenna and accordine to a wifi analyzer on a smartphone I have not earned practically nothing. I think the cans' metal alloy is not adequate.

image.jpg

image.jpg

image.jpg
 
It covers the entire antenna height, and width is, logically, in proportion.
The final result is exactly as te last image: the whole antena height is covered.
 

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