DBS mods - anyone got it?

You flat-landers get such great distance even w/o antenna upgrades. Its us mountain folk with distance limitations. I built a pair of windsurfers and that tripled my distance. Need to see some reports from the tree-impaired pilots here, before I pull the trigger on any other mod. Thanks for posting though.

I am not sure you could describe Wales as a flat land.. have a look at my video - plenty of hills and other obstacles around esp around 10:20 seconds

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I am not sure you could describe Wales as a flat land.. have a look at my video - plenty of hills and other obstacles around esp around 10:20 seconds

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We don't have any ocean beaches here in the mountains of central PA, so I deem you a flatlander, lol. Nice range though. Do you have a GPS tracker on your bird?
 
I am not sure you can come to this conclusion. I flew 20, 000 feet and I never managed to do that before in the same location

A bone stock Phantom 3 can do that.

Here is the first video example I found of an unmodified Phantom 3 getting ~17,000 feet before low signal and the pilot was flying much lower than you at only 200 feet. If he was at 450, I'm pretty sure he would reach 20K.

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Of course there will be some differences between stock Phantoms, which is why it would be good to see the same machine, in same area, doing the same flight, without mod and afterwards with the mod.
 
A bone stock Phantom 3 can do that.

Here is the first video example I found of an unmodified Phantom 3 getting ~17,000 feet before low signal and the pilot was flying much lower than you at only 200 feet. If he was at 450, I'm pretty sure he would reach 20K.

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Of course there will be some differences between stock Phantoms, which is why it would be good to see the same machine, in same area, doing the same flight, without mod and afterwards with the mod.

I have flown over 75 flights on the P3 - I have 4 P3 professional units. None of them will fly over 12,000 feet. I have repeated the flights over and over again changing antennas, adding amps and the results are pretty consistent.
 
We don't have any ocean beaches here in the mountains of central PA, so I deem you a flatlander, lol. Nice range though. Do you have a GPS tracker on your bird?

No GPS tracker to save weight
 
Got mine on Friday, installed in about an hour or less, easy to install. My box didn't have the little rubber plugs for the holes from the original antennas, but no big deal. Range is definitely really impressive. The plate should be pointing in the general direction of the bird (expected) but I was able to achieve an altitude that I otherwise would have 1 bar on RC and HD in my area, with full bars while holding the controller parallel to the ground. Oh also, instead of removing the ribbon cable from the little board with the USB ports, I unclipped the two side ribbons and unscrewed and removed the board itself, this made the ribbon cable removing MUCH easier than having to remove it using the needle nose angled pliers, just an FYI.
I also achieved a quite better horizontal range in my area (lots of trees and buildings) than I did stock.

I will test horizontal range tomorrow in a suburb where my parents live, but I have no doubts. The controller looks really cool with this mod too [emoji16]
View attachment 25807View attachment 25808

Yeah I have two P3 Pro birds, not sure if I will do the other controller yet, the little aluminum home-made boosters work quite well!

So much excess rf coax between the rc and the dbs mod antenna system, I wonder why, id tend to cable tie that down into a few rolls like a garden hose
 
Guys, I have the DBS mods, unopened box. Willing to sell to anyone for $15 bucks cheaper if anyone is interested. When I ordered this, I assumed I'd have some opportunities to go fly long, but my work schedule leads me to believe I will be unable to use this enough to make it worth it. PM me if interested.

Man up and open the RC, dont be scared homie.
 
I have flown over 75 flights on the P3 - I have 4 P3 professional units. None of them will fly over 12,000 feet. I have repeated the flights over and over again changing antennas, adding amps and the results are pretty consistent.
Must be a difference in some stock units... aka DJI mfg is inconsistent, bc my stock p3 can easily go 15K feet or more.
 
Yeah, I am not saying that the DBS is a bad thing but it is not getting me much more than stock. Sad thing is that I never got close to a mile stock. Two more flights today to see if penetration was any better but it was not.
 
Yeah, I am not saying that the DBS is a bad thing but it is not getting me much more than stock. Sad thing is that I never got close to a mile stock. Two more flights today to see if penetration was any better but it was not.

Same here. I did get noticeably better range overall. I would say it's somewhat significantly better, but I also live in a suburb of Chicago where there are trees everywhere and a crap-ton of power lines and interference. Even when I went out to the more rural suburb where my parents live, I got better range for sure, but the **** woods and the trees definitely did their job to weaken my range. From what I can tell, this mod works best if you really have that wide open area, really rural farmlands seem to be the best. Nonetheless, I'm pretty happy with the mod. I have another p3p where I am using the windsurfer booster and that seems to be more forgiving in terms of orientation of the controller.

I gotta get out to some more open areas to fly for range!
 
So much excess rf coax between the rc and the dbs mod antenna system, I wonder why, id tend to cable tie that down into a few rolls like a garden hose
Yeah, that's just how it was sent, maybe they don't make them smaller or something? Good call on shortening the cables though. I wonder if that would cause any kind of field change though? Though I assume that they are shielded from the looks of it. I kept them unwound to replicate DBS photos, but if anyone has any comments about winding them up and it not affecting signal in anyway, I'm down to clean that up. I don't like that the cable touches my phone/tablet, but it doesn't bother me much.
 
Yeah, that's just how it was sent, maybe they don't make them smaller or something? Good call on shortening the cables though. I wonder if that would cause any kind of field change though? Though I assume that they are shielded from the looks of it. I kept them unwound to replicate DBS photos, but if anyone has any comments about winding them up and it not affecting signal in anyway, I'm down to clean that up. I don't like that the cable touches my phone/tablet, but it doesn't bother me much.
Check on ebay for 4in or 6 in sma male to rp sma male right angle cables . They are much thinker and cleaner . As well as less signal loss. I tried posting the link to them but for some reason I can't get the link to post.
 
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Check on ebay for 4in or 6 in sma male to rp sma right angle cables . They are much thinker and cleaner . As well as less signal loss. I tried posting the link to them but for some reason I can't get the link to post.


Awesome! Thanks a bunch!

Did you get the mod as well or just thinking about it?
 
Awesome! Thanks a bunch!

Did you get the mod as well or just thinking about it?
I ordered it on Saturday with the install . I'm just waiting to hear back from dbs Mods with the go ahead to mail in my controller. I'm very anxious , I'm a junkie lol.
 
We don't have any ocean beaches here in the mountains of central PA, so I deem you a flatlander, lol. Nice range though. Do you have a GPS tracker on your bird?


The highest peak in PA is like 3200 feet asl and you're calling people flatlanders?....rofl.
 
I'm going back into the controller to separate the connectors as much as possible to see if maybe there was some interference from having them close. On a different note I prefer the look on the DBS much better than stock rabbit ears, lol.
 
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Have you got yours installed yet ? If so how were the results ?

Yeah! I posted my pictures of the install a page or so back on the forum. The results aren't too shabby! I assume that these cables are shielded (I mean they look pretty shielded) so I don't think internal separation is necessary, since the old wires were really cheap and had a cheap thin plastic coating and they were practically on top of each other. Though if I remember correctly, when I sealed up my controller the two cables were fairly separated.

As I mentioned a few posts up, my results were better than stock. The mod is pretty dependent on orientation, so you really kind of have to point in the general direction of the bird (which is expected, but it's slightly more sensitive to this fact than, let's say the windsurfer booster)

I managed to climb to an altitude I otherwise had 1 bar on RC and HD, with full bars using this mod (same with windsurfers)

I was also able to get a much greater distance in a heavily dense tree population than I did with stock. All in all, from what I've noticed thus far, is that this mod is really perfect with a nice flat land and a long distance of just open fields, kind of like the demo video. I would have to drive out a bit to find an area like that. I'm happy with it though, I don't worry at all about signal flying with this mod at medium distances. I got the mod so that I could do some distance flying when I get to an area that will allow me to do so, which should be soon.
 
I'm going back into the controller to separate the connectors as much as possible to see if maybe there was some interference from having them close. On a different note I prefer the look on the DBS much better than stock rabbit ears, lol.

I agree. I like that using this antenna, you don't have to adjust anything. I'm not a fan of folding ears either. Plus the controller looks cooler now. Ha!
 
Yeah! I posted my pictures of the install a page or so back on the forum. The results aren't too shabby! I assume that these cables are shielded (I mean they look pretty shielded) so I don't think internal separation is necessary, since the old wires were really cheap and had a cheap thin plastic coating and they were practically on top of each other. Though if I remember correctly, when I sealed up my controller the two cables were fairly separated.

As I mentioned a few posts up, my results were better than stock. The mod is pretty dependent on orientation, so you really kind of have to point in the general direction of the bird (which is expected, but it's slightly more sensitive to this fact than, let's say the windsurfer booster)

I managed to climb to an altitude I otherwise had 1 bar on RC and HD, with full bars using this mod (same with windsurfers)

I was also able to get a much greater distance in a heavily dense tree population than I did with stock. All in all, from what I've noticed thus far, is that this mod is really perfect with a nice flat land and a long distance of just open fields, kind of like the demo video. I would have to drive out a bit to find an area like that. I'm happy with it though, I don't worry at all about signal flying with this mod at medium distances. I got the mod so that I could do some distance flying when I get to an area that will allow me to do so, which should be soon.

Actually, they are not very shielded and VERY lossy at 2.4ghz. Because of their short length, those RG174 jumpers don't matter as much but by moving up to an RG58 jumper cut to size with right angle connectors put on, you could potentially regain about 5% of lost power in that jumper. I just ordered mine. These mods are cool but only so much can be done before amplification is required. A mod I think would be much more worth while is an antenna mod on the quad. That 2.4ghz antenna in the quad has got to have room for improvement. I'm thinking a quarterwave sticking right out of the top!!
 
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