100mW and 700mW range test results (using non directional antennas)

Why release a single video when you can release two at the same time?
Both are showing the system working using dipoles – no high gain directional antennas increasing range!

A word of advice: the 700mW video was filmed with out of focus lenses. A real shame, so make sure to watch both of them!

The 700mW video is is the only one where the system is far away enough to failsafe (trading video quality for range moving to a narrower bandwidth), so editing focused on showing that behaviour.

There is a lot that can be worked on via software changes, this is just setting some limits on performances to be expected but framerate and recovery/general behaviour will keep on improving. This is just the result after a few times out of the lab, after all.

100mW:

700mW:

23 thoughts on “100mW and 700mW range test results (using non directional antennas)”

  1. Great work! I did not expected such range and quality on 100mW omni antennas. I hope you’ll do great, your work and results are remarkable!.

  2. WOW!! Just awesome!! Ordered mine straight away!

    Huge thanks from Sveinung/AKA Nerdy on RC-groups

  3. Hi Davide, really impressive videos and a very nice looking picture in the 100mW video!
    Do you plan to add a serial port or a Bluetooth module to the ground module for bidirectional Mavlink/serial passthrough? This would be a very nice feature for mission planning, terrain data uploading, etc. Though a BT module is probably a bad idea due to the possible RF interference.

    1. The plan is either a raw serial port or masking that with a serial to USB chip inside the receiver, so that there is USB out and I don’t have to write any drivers.

  4. Outstanding, glad to see you pushing forward. Can you give a breakdown of the 50ms glass to glass latency, e.g., 16.7ms camera, xms encode, yms transmit, zms decode, 16.7ms display?

    Also, have you considered selling the design and/or finding an investor?

    1. Sorry, I don’t feel comfortable sharing a breakdown of the internal latency. 25ms however is reasonable for pixel in/pixel out. The first batch had independent test results as low as 40ms in 720p/60fps mode.

  5. Yes! Bravissimo .
    Are you using eagle tree vector in this videos ?
    Does pixhawk work better than eagle tree with fpv.blue ?

    Will we be more peaceful on rc.group ?

    1. They both work just as well (like iNAV, in theory, as it supports Mavlink). Those flights were using Ardupilot.

  6. Will you be doing a test in a relatively Rf noisy environment to see how it might act in a urban area?
    Also are guy abandoning the 1.2ghz version or will you pick it up later and make an updated version?

    Great job though, this is really awesome

    1. 1.3 GHz has been abandoned. I will see what I can do about a test in a urban area, but I won’t promise anything for now.

  7. Hi Davide, I’m saddened to hear that 1.3 had been abandoned. I was hoping for both frequencies on the same aircraft. Is it possible to run two of the 2.4 without significant interference?

    Also, in your opinion, what is the ‘good’ range for 700mw?

    1. Two 2.4 GHz units at the same time? Absolutely, as long as it’s on different planes. The “good” 700mW range depends on your environment, I would say around 10km on dipoles.

  8. Hi , from a purchaser of v1 this looks great. Can you pleeeeaase add some more osd elements, namely rc rssi and gps and flight mode? It’s nerve racking flying a new plane without those.

    Also, will the camera cable be more robust?

    1. GPS sats count is already there, you mean long/lat? The answer is “sure, if I can actually get enough preorders to make this”. The camera/hdmi cable is going to be something completely different from the first batch: more flexible, long and durable than you ever thought possible.

  9. How would your system work at 400 to 1000 feet altitude in a semi Urban environment out 7 km or 17km for that matter?

      1. The interference from home Wi-Fi networks and other things around the 2.4ghz range, where are you tested there’s no interference whatsoever and you were at 999 meters which of course you’re going to have a great signal.

        1. The signal is traveling through a ton of interference before reaching the receiver. Look at the 700mW video and count the number of houses, half of them are WiFi interferers.

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