Excellent 2.4 GHZ transmitter antenna

[MLaBoyteaux]

Perry Kavros put me onto a great transmitter antenna from Black Widow. This thing has nearly doubled the range on my downlink.

http://www.blackwidowav.com/astron3s.jpg

I'm using a 600mw transmitter and with the little stuby antenna that comes with them, we would run out of range when hovering high or flying more than a couple hundred feet away.

http://www.blackwidowav.com/astron2s.jpg

I installed one of these and we now have good reception as far away as I can stand to fly.

It's $41, but I'm about to buy a second one.

http://www.blackwidowav.com/astrondisk.html

[dreslism]

Cool. I have the standard antenna's on mine, and when I do these 300-400 ft up straight down overhead shots, I always loose my downlink signal.

Mark,

Have you flown this thing straight up above you? Just wondering if this will help.

What antenna are you using on your Rx?

Thanks

[askman]

I believe they are 7db gain? that should more than double your range. patch antennas are definitely good investment.

[dreslism]

Yes, I use a Goof Proof Patch antenna on my Rx, but this is the first I have seen for a Tx.

I forgot to ask, Mark does it have an sma connector on it, and how long is the cable?

Thanks

[MLaBoyteaux]

The cable is about 10" long. I have an 8db patch antenna on my receiver and we point it at the heli. It helps, but we still ran out of range. The connector screws right onto the transmitter.

One other thing that this antenna solved, on my mount with 360 servos, I discovered the RF from the video transmitter would cause the servos to creep. I could center the servo where it would hold position, but if the transmitter was moved close to the servo, it would begin to creep. If you got the antenna really close to the servo, they would REALLY take off.

After a lot of troubleshooting and diagnosing, I 100% confident it's the servos and not the gyro or receiver. Using this antenna lets me route the radiation further back away from the servos and cured the creepy servos.


Right now, I've routed it down the side of the mount and it's kinda danglin below the gimbal. I've zip tied the cable onto the existing wire bundle to keep it in place.

It doesn't seem to make a difference if it's pointed at the reciever or not. I don't think it's really a directional antenna, but it sure seems to have a signifigant gain!

I've done flights that were in excess of 300' straight above us and the signal never cut out. It started to get a little noisy, but was still acceptable.

[AZ ChopperCam]

nice find and thanks for the info Mark. I'm going to order one up ASAP and hopefully have it in time for my second demo with the police dept. on the 13th.

[oscillator]

don't forget the RX side. You can easily make a great RX antenna with a tin can. Some people claim to have measured up to 9dB gain with a tin can antenna. Simple google searches should turn up lots of designs. Here is a site that compares a few:
http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=12595