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Which Antenna ??

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Nov 28, 2016
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Going on Jafo's advice (somewhat belatedly) I've ordered most of the pieces to do the range extension mods to my Q500+ antennas. (antennae ??) Pretty straight forward - I got the extensions and the 90s and can fabricate the attachment pieces, but now I run into uncertainty on antennas and the more I read, the more confuzzled I get. I'm new to this stuff and not very good at it.

In the link provided, it calls for a 3 pack of 5.8 antennas, a 3 lobe, 4 lobe and 5 lobe. Why 3 when you can only use one ?? Why spend $30 or $40 when 1 is ~$10 ?? Which is better for our application ?? 3,4 or 5 lobe ??

I see just about nothing on what would be the best 2.4 antenna to mount on the drone and the stock one certainly won't fit on the new connector. (remember, I'm talking about the drone itself, not the controller) There are a multitude of 5.8 antennas out there....why no 2.4s ?? I bought my Q500+ used and it came to me with a flat, directional 2.4 antenna on the controller but I can't use that on the drone.

Big question, too - I have the ST101 antenna from CD mounted on my ST10+ controller and an email to CD received the answer that the ST101 is left polarized. Left ?? Almost everything online is right polarized....and the ST101 is flat. Polarized ?? Migawd, but I'm confused.

Sorry if I seem ignorant - I prefer to say, "poorly educated" in this stuff, but what to do ?? I hope someone can shed some light for me. Thanks
 
This is all you need if you purchased the parts we talked about before.

NEW 5.8GHz 2.4GHZ circular polarized antenna

Note: these antenni do not have a center pin and are a female connection. Your 90 degree connector should have the pin.

Thanks again, Jafo. They're ordered and I ordered the other parts directly off the links you supplied, so they should be fine. My 90s don't have the center pin on either side, but it should be simple enuf to fabricate an adapter pin. Does circular polarization mean they'll work with either left or right polarization ?? I'm surprised that the ST101 is left polarized when most others are right.
 
Your pig tails should have the center pin. If they do, you can bypass the 90's and connect straight to the antenna. Then you can bend the antenna mast down for the 90. That's what I did on my Q500.I used 90's on my 4k just for the heck of it.They really aren't needed if you don't have them.
How deep do you want to go into polarization ? In it's simplest terms....
Polarization refers to the signal wave at a fixed position in space (the receiver). There are three kinds of Polarization
Imagine a spinning tornado. If it spins left or right it indicates the direction the signal is being transmitted from the source. This is called "Circular Polarization" and it's what we use for the Q's.
The st10+ is indeed a left hand circular polarized transmitter.
The other two polarization's are Linear and Elliptical but since we don't deal with those, I'm not going to go there.
The receiver antenna we use is good for left or right polarization. You can get one that's just for left or right polarization but in our case it's just not that important. It's refereed to as "Discretion" and we just don't need to be that discreet in our signal reception.We'll take whatever signals come our way and trust the receiver will do it's own discretion and react to our transmitter signal only. So far so good.
Remember, when putting the body halves back together to only install enough screws to get the body to seat.Then connect the GUI and confirm all is working.I leave the GUI connected during the whole screw reinstall. If something gets pinched, you want to know before you get all those screws back in.
Keep us updated and good luck.
:)
 
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It's really confusing, which to buy. When I questioned the seller on eBay, his description of which sides of which piece had pins and which didn't sounded like something out of a Chinese instruction manual, so I went with the recommendation.....and had to do some fussing when they came in. The pins on the pieces that came in aren't what I thought he'd told me. The 90s weren't usable. I followed your (Jafo's) instructions part of the way, but decided to put the brackets out on the sides of the arms, rather than at the rear in order to gain maximum separation.

0N9031j_zpsym7u8dno.jpg


In that shot, it looks like the antenna bulb is touching the leg. It's not - there's ½" clearance. I tend to over-kill things a bit and wanted to be sure that a bump didn't break the bracket loose. Thin, brittle plastic doesn't hold fasteners too well. Here's what I came up with. The backing plates on the pop rivets make a big difference and weight is minimal:

0N8811cj_zpspdu6g9n7.jpg


I did the same on both sides, preparing for the camera antenna as well. That one is where I deviated from recommendations. My observation has been that the camera mount/drive is extremely sensitive to any restriction at all - even a tiny bit out of balance with the screw thingie on the back. It'll sit there and "bob its head." I understand the need to have the antenna vertical and don't like the idea of it hiding behind the plastic piece on the housing. I "don't" like the idea of that wire to the new antenna dangling behind it, regardless of how it's balanced, held, secured, whatever.

Looking at the high performance antenna that came with my (used)(pre-owned) Q500+ and the pictures of recommended antennas, it appears that the stock camera antenna is identical to them, just badly positioned/mounted. Very careful checking/testing showed me that the existing connection was barely long enuf to let the antenna point almost straight down with the front cover off.....but it doesn't look very good. (big wire hanging out behind looks good ??) With a silent apology to Jafo, I carefully cut a small notch in the white housing and another small slot in the black cover. Everything fit. Here it is. In flight the antenna points straight down:

0N9030j_zpsdzretwve.jpg


With everything connected and ready to fly, all checked out perfectly, but that camera antenna is very close to the ground. I had an old graphite fishing rod hiding in a corner of the shop, so cut a piece out of it and zip-tied it into place. Then I found that by pushing the landing gear feet closer together it gave me more ground clearance. A bit of hot glue held them in place. A bit more hot glue in the ends will keep junk from getting in there. To my eye, it looks fine, but there's only ½" clearance between antenna and ground. I think that length of fishing rod will be a major help in preventing damage to the antenna and the camera itself. It's feather light but very strong.:

0N9026j_zpsuluqyk3f.jpg


It's been consistently windy for what seems like forever - southwestern New Mexico in springtime/early summer - but I have been able to make a couple of short flights. 1st one was only a circle around my home and kept it within 100 yards or so. No problems.

2nd flight, a couple of days ago, went out a bit over 900 ft and made a big loop to come back. Flight was flawless, both with camera and control of the Q. No hesitations or blips at all. Pheeew. If the bloody wind ever stops, I'll go back out to the ruins to get an apples to apples comparison - that's about 1,300 ft - but I'm very optimistic.

Thanks for your help, Jafo. Hope my deviation works out well for this thing.
 
I'm hopin things go well. I can't see why they wouldn't.
Let us know how you make out and Good Luck.
:)

Of course, I came up with a glitch. Flying seems fine now, no problems at all, but I was getting some bobbing of the camera at times. Turns out the antenna is contacting the pivot at the back of the camera mount at about 70º or 80º downward deflection. If I don't rotate it that far down, all is well and video is beautiful. Now, I'm not sure what to do. I don't think I "need" 90º deflection but will my little pea brain remember I don't have it.

I don't really want to get into dismantling the camera to install the new antenna wire, tho' I've already installed the mount, fitting and wire on the airframe.

Then, too, it's almost constantly windy here and I can't fly it much and, to be frank.......I really don't have all that much need or interest anymore and am starting to think about maybe selling it. I have one more small project video in mind, then.......??
 
I primarily fly 3D R/C planes. Drones are one of many second hobbies to that for me. I also do a bit of rocketry too so I always have something in the air. When it's blazing hot like it was today (114F) I fly my glider. Like most, wind is my only killer.
I hope you stick with it or find another hobby in flight you enjoy. The comradery found in the flying hobbies just cant be beat.
:)
 
I was looking at Sunhans website and I noticed they have several amplifiers from which two are designed for RC usage. They have the aluminum yellow one that people are using for the 5.8ghz which is a 2W i guess. But, I also noticed they have a 3W 2.4ghz amplifier as well. I bet that 3w amp will extend the control of the aircraft for miles even after the video faded away. The question here is, since the controller uses two 2.4ghz antenna wires, would it need two 2.4ghz amplifiers?
 

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