DBS Mod - Signal Strong, Weak, Strong, No Signal

[BourgeoisSJC]

I installed this mod a few months back and with the weather turning more favorable here in the "Great White North" I have been testing the install. All my serious testing took place in a rural area with a wide open field, no trees, buildings, power lines. The one major (and maybe only) problem I have is antenna orientation.

I send the drone out (50-80 m alt) and at 400-500 meters I start to lose signal. Or not. The signal may go from 100 % to zero at the blink of an eye. It then may jump back up to full strength even without any movement of the antenna. When I see the signal dropping I may stop the drone and adjust the antenna position to regain strength. Sometimes this works other times it does not. Bottom line is, I can hover the drone with 100% signal strenth, hold the remote/antenna as steady as possible and watch the signal drop from 100% to zero causing RTH to kick in. Before it starts its journey home my signal is completely back.

I have a second remote equipped with a simple windsurfer and almost get the same distances at this location.

I have tested this DBS setup at two other locations and while I do not get the same distance the signal loss/restore behavior is the same. During all tests the video link is rock solid. During a Litchi mission going over 1 mile from Home I never lost video signal once. So where do I begin to look? Drone or remote???

Here is the link to the last tests I did yesterday

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[dirkclod]

Sounds like a aiming issue to me. I have 2 and can go with both as far as the battery will let me. Now I do fly where I
do have perfit LOS and sit on a bucket to hold the panel
pointed completely still. Aiming is everything with the panel.
DB here uses a tripod to aim his and he goes for lonnnnng
distances. Might not be your issue but is what I have found and been using one since they came out.
As far as the mission with that app I havnt a clue.
Don't use it.

 

[BourgeoisSJC]

Sounds like a aiming issue to me. .

Thats my first reaction. The thing is, the current setup is totally unusable. I can fly around within a 400 meter radius with everything just fine then.... boom RTH activates. When using litchi, for reasons unknown to me, I seldom have timeto react to the signal loss before RTH kicks in. Dji-Go is a bit more forgiving as I see the "weak signal" warning and have some time to respond. Either way, this current situation, where a twitch of the hand cause signal loss, is not going to work for me. What puzzles me is that my down/video link is rock solid. I never loss it. From what I read most people seem to lose it before the uplink...

 

[Erised]

I have DBS 2 with a clean install and my video will go way before the uplink, so much so that at times video is completely out and uplink is full bars, also I seem to be loosing video sooner than before. I am not sure if this can make a difference but my right hand side cable out from my RC is cabled to the left side of my antenna (port 1). Aim is touchy and I can tweak using my video signal before I go into RTH. Because of the angle of the antenna on the RC I find that at times it's not only horizontal aim that's off but vertical, I point way too high and realise I am trying to lock on a satellite.

 

[The Springs]

My Standard with a DBS panel and it behaves exactly the same
When I first installed the DBS I was getting 700m and the orientation of the antenna not so critical .Now after disasterous FW upgrade and a trip to China 350m is about it and connection is lost easily with small movements of the controller .Only usable for litchi missions
Like yours I get video feed out to 1.2km
I have alway though the controller was the problem I read somewhere that it could be a poor connection of the antenna nipple to the board or just a poor transmitter unit .In the end I bought an Advanced

 

[BourgeoisSJC]

I have alway though the controller was the problem I read somewhere that it could be a poor connection of the antenna nipple to the board or just a poor transmitter unit .In the end I bought an Advanced

I keep Excel spreadsheet on each test which show that my problems did not start immediately after installing DBS mod. The first few days I was getting well over 1000m without any loss. The furthest was 1580m with a signal strength of 60% before I turned back home. That's almost 1 mile without any loss of signal. After long thoughts I remembered that on that flight upon landing when I turned off the drone it flipped on its side and I had to run over and shut it off. No apparent damage, not even a nick on any of the props so I didn't give it any more thought. The following day(s) my problems I described above started. Is this just a coincidence or did the flip cause some internal damage? When I read your post I doubt it but if I can't find an explanation for this sudden change I may have to open up the drone and check the connections. Could a loose connection cause loss of distance. One would think that a loose connection would cause issues no matter what range. But what do I know

 

[WilliamM]

Not sure if you double check your connections on the RC board, but I would open it back up and make sure it's completely on. Also double check your cable routing that the control cable is connected to that side of the DBS, port 1. That said aiming is critical, you don't have to be spot on but at the most if you're more than 20 degrees off you're going to lose signal. And the further you get out the margin for error will be even less.