Just cone back from an hour flying with my mini sky walker.
I decided to try some fat shark clovers.
One on the goggle, one on the plane.
I am very impressed. I took the model out to around 400m with no break up at all! I could have gone further - but was getting too far from the field for comfort.
On all the other antennas I have used, I suffered severe signal degradation round 250 to 300m.
No idea how they do it - but they are worth they money you pay!
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Which Fatshark clovers are these ? I didn`t know Fatshark were making antennas
Imersion RC :)
Are then not the same company that makes the fat shark stuff?
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Yes they supply the units to Fatshark, but the antennas are ImmersionRC Spironets in that case
I see!
They are superb. Very impressed.
Only real question. Why does no one sell only the to antenna on its own?
Rob
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That is a good question, the presume at first that you want one on the receiver and one on your transmitter. They then forget that most of us fly more than one craft, and we might need more of them, or we might want to use the Skew-Planar`s on both instead of a cloverleaf on any of them, but that means buying multiple sets and using only half the set
Agreed. When you consider the price of them - it is a little odd that we have to 'waste' all that money buying multiple receivers.
Tell you what is funny. I built my antenna tracker because I was dissapointed with the range of my clovers. (originally cheapo ebay ones)
Had I simply used these - I would probably have delayed the antenna tracker for at least year! With just my goggles and a 200mw transmitter, I have complete portability - and ability to fly at huge distance :-)
Just been out flying again.
Took the model out to 450m. Still hand a decent signal, but was definitely dropping.
Not bad considering just the clover talking to my goggles.
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Think Wayne did 2.5 k on skews he bought of this site(not immersion )
There's a world of difference between cheap antennas bought on ebay, and someone who knows what they are doing. I bought some sets of ebay thinking if the shape looks right, it'll be good - and they were of course shite. Breaking up at around 300m, but at the time I thought it was good.
However, having now got several well built skews from members of this very forum (one of them lurking one post up), in my experience these will outperform the immersion clovers quite quickly (and as Coyote mentioned 2 x skews is better than a skew and one clover). I know this from a few meets when someone flying with the Immersion skews starts complaining his picture is going fuzzy, and these rest of us riding passenger with decent skews still have crystal clear picture.
Let me clarify because this always leaves me confused.
Clovers vs Skews. What the difference?
Agreed a decent set will give you some good range, I have a set from Flynn and I can get 1km just above the ground on the quad (still LOS) and had 2km on the ES2 with just a set of his. I've also seen very impressive results with the Immersion ones and the fact they are hard cased is a bonus, you will get 1.5km easy on immersion ones with a 600mw tx and further in the right conditions
I look forward to seeing the antennas the guys sell on here getting hard cases. 3d printer should do the trick?
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Tbh it has to degrade the signal, I'm no boffin at radio stuff but a solid in the way must cause a loss of some description. I have yet to bust a naked one so quite happy with my naked ones.
Quote from: rob.thomson on October 18, 2013, 05:04:27 PM
Let me clarify because this always leaves me confused.
Clovers vs Skews. What the difference?
Can anyone clarify for me?
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A clover has 3 lobes, and a skew has 4. When people started on this a skew was used on the vrx and a clover on the vtx. But better results are gained with a pair of skews instead
Curious that they are all still sold in that format.
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So what you are saying is that both the rx and rx have 4 lobes. But what is the difference in shape between a clover and a skew?
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Hi mate, the clover has 3 lobes & has slight signal gaps that become apparent when at range, if you point the gap back at the other antenna your signal will drop slightly then come back as you move the gap away.
Skew antennas have 4 lobes & do not suffer from the flaws of clovers.
(http://www.uavshop.co.uk/product-images/fpv/clover-leaf-lg.gif) leaf
On the left is a 3 leaf Cloverleaf antenna, on the right the 4 leaf Skew-Planar wheel
The 4 leaf Skew-Planar gives better multipath rejection than the Cloverleaf so is regarded as the best of the two for being on the receiver end as it rejects multipathed signals which you would get on the ground reflected from objects around the ground station.
The Clover was introduced first as a transmitter antenna but since the Skew came about it performs no less than the Cloverleaf and actually has a much better circular pattern emitted from it so now is the popular choice for both ground and air antennas.
The Cloverleaf is fine, but when going for the max range the Skew will hold its pattern better giving a more solid picture and more gradual fade when you reach the limits compared to the Clover
ImmersionRC/ Fat Shark don't subscribe to the "myth" (their words) about a 3 leaf Skew Planar Wheel (AKA Cloverleaf) performing better than a proper 4 leaf Skew Planer Wheel on the VTx and now all of their SpiroNET antennas are 4 leaf - Tx and Rx.
They're also all the same length with better bendy stalks now too.
They're co-branded ImmersionRC and Fatshark but ImmersionRC actually sells them.
I guess the thing about using Cloverleafs when everyone was home making them was they were easier because there was one less petal to deal with!
All the best
Simon
I understand all that but immersion were nt "home making" them. Still posses the question why with all there tec they did make them like that. Sorry but did nt want to start a new post.
Mark
Hi there, sorry for the noobiness but I'm running a Fatshark Attitude with Immersion RC antennae on both the goggles and the 250MW tx. I reckon on a good day this gets me about 400 metres or so, it needs to be a good day though :D
I've seen skews and other stuff I don't understand for sale on here. Will these make a massive difference even though I've no intention of building a groundstation or anything like it at the minute? Would I be safer simply switching for the 600MW tx first or a comination of new antennae and a 600mw?
It's for a phantom v1 so I'm conscious of flight times. Or lack of........
thanks all :)
I'll put my 2p in here.
I'm a big fan of Bignose13's skews. But they seem to have degraded over time, not due to his build quality or anything like that but my heavyhandedness. They've been bent, snagged etc etc and I'm pretty sure the lobes aren't in the correct orientation for "perfection" any more. I can't say I'm able to get perfect video after 500m any more because I can't.
Contrast that with the Immersion "cased" skews which are undamaged inside despite some enthusiastic attempts that the contrary, and still work as they did over a year ago.
I think when I buy some more skews I'll absolutely ensure that they're cased. I'm far too hamfisted with them while loading into the car etc.
Kinder Surprise innard thingies work great as covers.
Dusty, good quality antennas will make a difference. As comparison - I use Flyn's antennas and get around 1300m out of them with a Fatshark 100mW transmitter.
I'm with Steve here as some of my naked clovers and skews have suffered hanger rash so I try to remove them from the model asap to preserve their shape. However the cased IRC ones are as fresh as the day they were made and stay on the models all the time. On my quad which has a downward facing skew it must be a cased example or it would get squished every bad landing, which is quite frequent.
Never bought a cheapy one so cannot comment on those but I do recommend the ones sold by members on here.
Mick
To be honest I am not impressed with my Immersion omni antenna's. The Spironet patch is good, but the little domed clovers, poor in comparison to my set of circular wireless SPW's.
Dusty, you want to eliminate any other chances of noise that might be hampering your video signal first. Getting 400m on 250mW doesn't seem far at all. Try to distance your VTx and antenna from all other equipment (awkward on a Quad I know) or do some ground tests with only the VTX connected and transmitting without the GPS or Rx being powered and see how far you can get. Then turn on each element in turn and do the test again to see what may be causing interference.
Do your tests in an open area, such as a park so that you reduce the chances of other external signals degrading your own Video signal.
When you say ImmersionRC antennas you don`t mean the black straight ones with ImmersionRC written up the length of them do you ?
IE : (http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n39/cayote64/cayote64091/branded-antenna_zps29394234.jpg)
I also got fed up with constantly bending my skews back into place....
My local tesco had little boxes of 6 ping pong balls for a fiver.
A little slit up to about halfway up and a small relief for the coax and some tape to seal it up after you have popped it over the antenna.
Protects it nicely on my experience. I can now have my rx in my rucksack bouncing around with my flight transmitter.
I just need to sort out something for my helical now.
/Steve
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Quote from: krikey on April 29, 2014, 09:41:08 PM
Dusty, you want to eliminate any other chances of noise that might be hampering your video signal first. Getting 400m on 250mW doesn't seem far at all. Try to distance your VTx and antenna from all other equipment (awkward on a Quad I know) or do some ground tests with only the VTX connected and transmitting without the GPS or Rx being powered and see how far you can get. Then turn on each element in turn and do the test again to see what may be causing interference.
Do your tests in an open area, such as a park so that you reduce the chances of other external signals degrading your own Video signal.
Thanks, I'll post a pic of my setup later on but to be honest there isn't much really can be done as you say. The VTx is on the underside of the quad with the antenna bent down at the back at 90 degrees (ish)
I fly at a paintball site I own, here's a vid of the area
http://youtu.be/Eh9krUON4nQ (http://youtu.be/Eh9krUON4nQ)
There's a whole lot of nothing interference wise :D Brilliant flying playground though. To be fair the setup i have gets good reception all around, just not massive range. You can see the extent of it if you freeze the video at 2.30 that's me at max range where the signal disappeared, not much good to anyone watching who doesn't know the area though!!
Quote from: Coyote on April 29, 2014, 09:44:42 PM
When you say ImmersionRC antennas you don`t mean the black straight ones with ImmersionRC written up the length of them do you ?
IE : (http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n39/cayote64/cayote64091/branded-antenna_zps29394234.jpg)
I have those which came with the Fatsharks but I use the UFO shaped things which are much better :)
Ok just checking, 400m range seems very low.