My FPVLR antenna arrived!

[jerryn]

The Solo is going to need more room. If you have a public soccer field nearby, public school baseball field...and if r/c flights are not banned in those locations then I would try there. I wouldn't fly out of a driveway or near buildings because it's not going to be a good experience with any GPS guided r/c aircraft. There could be enough signal reflections to prevent an accurate GPS lock

In an urban areas I would go with a smaller lighter r/c model, not a 4.5lb 3DR Solo.
A solo is great to fly off a pier. Along the coastline out to an island nearby in a desert.. open field. Not over an urban neighborhood. That will not go well. A parrot swing or Bebop drone is small, light and if it hits a car it won't do some manage.

A 3DR Solo if flown in the wrong location and crashes into a car... Can do some damage.

That's why I fly where I fly.
The airfield I fly out of is 25 minutes from my house
and I can follow the river to the ocean. If I fly from my yard to the ocean I have to cross a road... So even though my yard is large enough for a good GPS fix.. I don't fly out of my yard. I fly my wltoys V913 heli and my parrot swing in my yard. My DJI 1.1 , Hobbyking CloudSurfer, 3DR Solo, and Homebrew drone with 3dr APM 2.0 controller all fly out of my club's airfield.

 

[jerryn]

And the terrain here isn't all flat. Flat terrain because my goal is to fly from the airfield to the coastline

 

[dirtyvu]

well, I've enjoyed my experience so far. Just want to improve it as much as possible.

For new people, I would suggest you try out your drone as-is, see how it works for you. And if you enjoy the Solo as much as I do, then start to upgrade it if you just want that little bit more.

 

[dirtyvu]

One more thing I'd like to add. Upgrading the antennas is extremely easy. Getting amplifiers and battery is extremely easy. Upgrading the GPS is fairly easy.

Upgrading the Wifi is extremely difficult. You are completely disassembling the drone and it's not for the faint of heart. If you watch the video everyone is posting of the process, most of it seems easy until he gets to the hard part. At this point, he mentions the hard part and just kind of glosses over what he did. And then voila, the drone is done.

They buried the Wifi card in the middle of the drone, beneath the main motherboard and drone body. So you literally have to remove every piece of the drone to get to it and pull the motherboard out to get to the card. And they glued the wires so you have to cut away the glue to disconnect the cables to connect them to the new Wifi card. Because things in the drone are small and tightly packed, I don't recommend upgrading the Wifi unless you really want that range improvement.

 

[jerryn]

A higher power Wifi Card in the bird MIGHT cause issues with GPS. I wouldn't do it. I get plenty of range with just upgrading the antenna on the controller. It's real easy to connect the FPVLR antenna to the Solo Controller. If you fly in a wide open area you will be very pleased with the range achieved just by upgrading the antenna on the controller. If you don't want to spend a lot of money the $20.00 Alfa antennas deliver
decent performance too, not as good as the FPVLR but there is a significant improvement. I have both.

 

[Learning2Fly]

Thanks for the intel and perspective Jerryn and dirtyvu, that's exactly the info I'm looking for. I'm still on the fence about the wifi card upgrade... just not certain what it is you gain?... and as far as the FPVLR, I know it gives great range but the directional orientation aspect of it concerns me. I'll be flying by myself mostly without the luxury of a spotter. I'd rather like to find some powerful omnidirectional antennas....

 

[jerryn]

The best Omnidirectional antenna that I know of is the Alfa 9db onmi antenna. It looks like the stock antenna, but bigger. You can find it on Amazon.

For flights with the FPVLR antenna you don't need a spotter. A spotter is only needed if you want to test your range limits.

Here's my first flight video taken with the FPVLR antenna:

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I didn't have a spotter. When you see the video you'll notice I pause a couple of times, and increase altitude. It was just because I was closely monitoring how many "bars" of signal I had.. move the antenna slightly sometimes increase altitude.. to maintain the best signal. Also I flew so far out I could barely see the Solo. With a spotter I would fly out until I had 1 bar of signal.

The FPVLR had a beam width of 60 degrees. As long as you point the antenna in the general direction of the Solo you will get amazing performance.

I'm very pleased with them.


As far as the directional aspect of the FPVLR.. it's not a problem since legally you need a visual line of sight on any r/c aircraft while you are flying it. So pointing the controller in the general vicinity of the aircraft isn't a problem.

 

[Learning2Fly]

The best Omnidirectional antenna that I know of is the Alfa 9db onmi antenna. It looks like the stock antenna, but bigger. You can find it on Amazon.

For flights with the FPVLR antenna you don't need a spotter. A spotter is only needed if you want to test your range limits.

Here's my first flight video taken with the FPVLR antenna:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

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I didn't have a spotter. When you see the video you'll notice I pause a couple of times, and increase altitude. It was just because I was closely monitoring how many "bars" of signal I had.. move the antenna slightly sometimes increase altitude.. to maintain the best signal. Also I flew so far out I could barely see the Solo. With a spotter I would fly out until I had 1 bar of signal.

The FPVLR had a beam width of 60 degrees. As long as you point the antenna in the general direction of the Solo you will get amazing performance.

I'm very pleased with them.


As far as the directional aspect of the FPVLR.. it's not a problem since legally you need a visual line of sight on any r/c aircraft while you are flying it. So pointing the controller in the general vicinity of the aircraft isn't a problem.

Would these be the ones ?..
are the connectors right ?

 

[dirtyvu]

the Wifi upgrade will get you 2-3X the range with the STOCK antennas. that's right. with no changes to the antennas, you'll get 2-3X the range. BUT it's the hardest upgrade to do as you have to disassemble the drone.

If I had to do it all over again, I would skip the FPVLR antennas and gotten the other antennas with the Wifi upgrade. I haven't heard anyone have their GPS affected by the Wifi upgrade.

 

[Learning2Fly]

@ dittyvu When you say "other antennas "
which ones are you referring to ?

 

[dirtyvu]

the alfa paddles... https://3drpilots.com/threads/basic-guide-to-solo-antennas-stock-alfa-fpvlr.8078/

 

[Learning2Fly]

Oh ok gotcha

 

[Maddog]

This is a great upgrade:https://3drpilots.com/threads/brite-lite-led-lighting-system.8863/

 

[rcflyingaddict]

The best Omnidirectional antenna that I know of is the Alfa 9db onmi antenna. It looks like the stock antenna, but bigger. You can find it on Amazon.

For flights with the FPVLR antenna you don't need a spotter. A spotter is only needed if you want to test your range limits.

Here's my first flight video taken with the FPVLR antenna:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I didn't have a spotter. When you see the video you'll notice I pause a couple of times, and increase altitude. It was just because I was closely monitoring how many "bars" of signal I had.. move the antenna slightly sometimes increase altitude.. to maintain the best signal. Also I flew so far out I could barely see the Solo. With a spotter I would fly out until I had 1 bar of signal.

The FPVLR had a beam width of 60 degrees. As long as you point the antenna in the general direction of the Solo you will get amazing performance.

I'm very pleased with them.


As far as the directional aspect of the FPVLR.. it's not a problem since legally you need a visual line of sight on any r/c aircraft while you are flying it. So pointing the controller in the general vicinity of the aircraft isn't a problem.

Wow - $129 for the FPVLR -- I would like more range, heck who wouldn't but dont think I want to spend 129 to get there. May try out the $19 paddles if I have issues after testing out the solo stock.