Almost made 2 kilometers

by squishy | October 17, 2012 | (11) Posted in Challenges

I have been stretching my FPV range and had reached the limit of my 2200 batteries with limited flight time to spare.  I was only able to fly out and back 1 kilometer.  While I wait on larger batteries to come in the mail I decided to stretch that range to 2 kilometers with a one way flight, with help from friends.  This flight is just shy of 2 kilometers (1.85) and I had great video the entire time, I believe it will go even further once I get more flight time, stay tuned.

 

This flight was done with three spotters on cell phones and below 400 feet, so quit whining AMA fanboys... PIRATE FOR LIFE!

 

DJI 450 clone

Naza GPS

600mw airwave 5.8ghz

Circular Wireless SPW on craft

BEV 7 turn helical at base station

Flown with Dragonlink

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COMMENTS

rcjoseb on October 18, 2012
"This flight was done with three spotters on cell phones and below 400 feet, so quit whining AMA fanboys... PIRATE FOR LIFE!"

I agree. AMA is an insurance company masquerading as an r/c club and all they can do is make their chartered clubs adhere to rules they set for their club fields. Outside of their clubs they have no control over the skies. That's up to to FAA.


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LanMark on October 17, 2012
Nice to know your limits. How do you like DragonLink? V2 I assume? Not sure why you would be going into failsafe at 1.85KM for a system designed for 30KM.. any idea on that? Looks like your basestation is outfitted as well. Something seems fishy with loosing link at 1.85KM.
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squishy on October 17, 2012
Both the video and Dragonlink antenna's were near a small wood fence, both were less than 4 feet above the ground. Either the fence blocked it when the quad was very low or the ground plane had something to do with the connection. I agree it should not have gone into failsafe, but I do know that both video and control was lost when near the ground at that location. In the future I will be elevating my antennas at the base station. Dragonlink should have no issues going through objects, unless it was the ground, which it might have been. There's a lot to say about elevating the base station so this does not occur.
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LanMark on October 17, 2012
interesting.. one would think the DragonLink at 433 Mhz wouldn't matter all that much regarding the fence or height off the ground at least at 2KM wise... and this is on low power? (250mW)? I could see the video being a problem especially at 5.8GHz.. which doesn't get very good range and really needs line of sight.

I have been thinking about getting a DragonLink as I really like having 12channels to play with and I have a ham license and doing stuff on it would be fun. I don't fly a plane so I can't imagine I would have range problems with a UHF system like it.
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squishy on October 17, 2012
Airplanes give you a lot more room to spread things out, my DL RX is right next to a Naza, GPS, and vTX, all of this effects range. On an airplane you can spread the things out and get better RF filtered. I have my video system isolated from my control system but I am still running a single battery, there are many factors that effect range, not just what system you are using. I personally love the Dragonlink, one of my best purchases...
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Jake Wells on October 18, 2012
That's rad. My spotters are 3 and 5 years old.
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squishy

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Almost made 2 kilometers