???FPVLR or ITELITE DBS???

ArnhemAnt · Mar 2, 2017

CC Rider said:
Thanks a lot for giving me the right answer. And for your generous offer to help me out if I needed to upgrade my unit. I really appreciate it.

You're more than welcome. We're all here to help each other so that we can enjoy flying and filming with the H.

I think you'll enjoy the DBS. I've tried a few other options/brands and the DBS is staying put on my ST16.

arck · May 11, 2017

So guys, which one to buy, DBS or FPVRL, need to decide, thanks

Air Pauly · May 11, 2017

arck said:
So guys, which one to buy, DBS or FPVRL, need to decide, thanks

truth is you wont go wrong with either of those to be honest, just pick one

Haydn · May 11, 2017

PLL · May 11, 2017

Both are very good antennas. It was suggested to me before that the FPVLR is best if you are in an unobstructed or non urban / non suburban area and that the ITELITE is better in such areas. It may seem odd because bother are line of sight 'beam' antennas. What I have found is that the suggestion seems valid. In an area of 'clutter', that is a bunch of low buildings, the ITELITE seemed to give a bit more performance and in an open area such as rural the FPVLR worked as well, perhaps a little bit better.

I did not consider that either one was so much better than the other as to worry about it except at extremes.

The FPVLR antennas are "helical" type and the ITELITE are "patch" type or patch arrays. Patch and helical will both work with any type on the other end, except that helical antennas on both ends require the same 'handedness', that is, right hand or left hand spiral direction.

A guess at why the FPVLR had less subjective performance (subjective because I had no scientific way to measure it) in my tests could be that as the signals bounce off objects between the transmitter and the receiver, the rotating polarity of the FPVLR wave over distance means that at any specific distance the polarity of the wave may be anywhere in the 360 degree circle, and this causes the polarity of the reflections from objects at random points along the path to vary accordingly, and so they did not tend to always 'add' their strengths as much at the receiver but sometimes subtracted from each other, worst when the polarity was rotated 180 degrees from 'normal' as it would be 180 degrees out of phase with the direct signal. The reflections would not be strong enough to cancel out the main beam but would cause fluctuations in the received strength and therefor distance performance.

This is just a guess and/or opinion however and one should refer to a proper knowledge such as the book "Antennas" by John Daniel Kraus. I have the 2nd edition but there is a 3rd ed. now and so some bargains may be available on this otherwise rather costly book. No I don't have time to look it up so, sorry just an opinion on this question.

Here there are some paperback versions of this 920 page book for amazingly very low price.
https://www.amazon.com/Antennas-John-D-Kraus/dp/0071004823/

arck · May 11, 2017

Thank you very much for your time to answer my question, now it's clearer for me, will buy both hahah, but will try first with the DBS, have another question, I have the radio with two antenas, saw on youtube how to mod this to have three, DBS sold both type of antennas, should I make the mod or just buy the DBS with two connectors only to match my radio.
thanks

PLL said:
Both are very good antennas. It was suggested to me before that the FPVLR is best if you are in an unobstructed or non urban / non suburban area and that the ITELITE is better in such areas. It may seem odd because bother are line of sight 'beam' antennas. What I have found is that the suggestion seems valid. In an area of 'clutter', that is a bunch of low buildings, the ITELITE seemed to give a bit more performance and in an open area such as rural the FPVLR worked as well, perhaps a little bit better..................................................................continue

ArnhemAnt · May 11, 2017

arck said:
should I make the mod or just buy the DBS with two connectors only to match my radio.
thanks

The mod to the ST16 is well worth it. I have done this with my ST16 and now use the DBS (with three antenna) and it works very well for my applications.

arck · May 11, 2017

Great thanks, just bought the dbs itelite max range for three antennas, will do the mod

ArnhemAnt said:
The mod to the ST16 is well worth it. I have done this with my ST16 and now use the DBS (with three antenna) and it works very well for my applications.

Comtech · May 12, 2017

Hi all, I have a questions about antennas. I have the ST-16 with three antennas, and I'm thinking about upgrading to the FPLVR type. Would it be a valid configuration to buy the set of two, one 5.8.and one 2.4 and leave one of the stock omni 2.4 in place? I would imagine that the H and the ST-16 use some type of diversity to chose the best RX, but I have never heard of TX diversity. My concern is if the antennas are not matched could there be a problem with equal signal strength for uplink and downlink?