Mark The Droner Posted at 2018-9-6 13:20
I don't get those results.  With mine, Erskine's template takes up the entire page from edge to edge.  TTT's template takes up less than the entire page.

What's your image printing pipeline?

Right from the TTT download page, you can see that the design takes up a complete A4 page from top to bottom. It's a very simple to print PDF file

Erskine's template is a bitmap, which is a shame because most operating systems will stretch a bitmap to fill the page size (whichever page size it's printed on) if directly printed (including Windows). That's why I was intrigued with the printing procedure for Erskine's design.

I work in multimedia, and do a lot of graphic design. I imported both directly to CorelDRAW Suite 2018, and that's the 1:1 size comparison of the original files.

Mark The Droner Posted at 2018-9-6 13:20
I don't get those results.  With mine, Erskine's template takes up the entire page from edge to edge.  TTT's template takes up less than the entire page.

This is a quick screengrab to show you what I mean in terms of TTT's design taking up a whole A4 sheet of paper.

Mark The Droner Posted at 2018-9-6 13:20
I don't get those results.  With mine, Erskine's template takes up the entire page from edge to edge.  TTT's template takes up less than the entire page.

This is Erskine's design imported onto an A4 sized canvas for printing in CorelDRAW:

When I try to print Erskine's image, it takes the entire page.  

I am measuring the deflector which I made a couple years ago.  I'm rolling it along a tape rule.  It measures six and a half inches from left to right, and it's three and three quarter inches in height.  

Thanx for that infos.

I just remembered something.  I didn't use Erskine's template when I made my windsurfer.  I used some other one that was going around the forums back in 2015.  I didn't even know about freeantennas.com until later.  It was then, in 2016 I think, that I did make his corner antenna from his template on his site, but it's huge and I can only use it on my router.  Works great.  I point it towards the middle of the house.  The windsurfer is on the 2nd antenna on the router, but doesn't work quite as well as the corner.  I point it towards my launch area out back where it gives me wifi back there where I wouldn't otherwise have it.  

However, Erskine was the original guy who designed these way back when.  Then a bunch of other sites copied his design.  Some gave him credit, some did not.  A bit later, the Chinese aftermarketers starting selling windsurfers.  At least one used his original drawings to illustrate how they worked.

Anyway,  I think you may be right - Erskine's template as he has it sized or as it would be printed from the graphic may not fit onto your controller.  My bad.  :-D

He calls his a "six inch reflector."  For what that's worth.  And he says it can be made bigger if we wish.  

...

Mark The Droner Posted at 2018-9-6 13:41
I just remembered something.  I didn't use Erskine's template when I made my windsurfer.  I used some other one that was going around the forums back in 2015.  I didn't even know about freeantennas.com until later.  It was then, in 2016 I think, that I did make his corner antenna from his template on his site, but it's huge and I can only use it on my router.  Works great.  I point it towards the middle of the house.  The windsurfer is on the 2nd antenna on the router, but doesn't work quite as well as the corner.  I point it towards my launch area out back where it gives me wifi back there where I wouldn't otherwise have it.  

However, Erskine was the original guy who designed these way back when.  Then a bunch of other sites copied his design.  Some gave him credit, some did not.  

It's OK! We all make mistakes. However, I did feel you were a bit harsh on TTT. He did give full credits for the design on the website, and he made full instructions as well as two range tests on drones.

But it happens! In the end we all learned something.

I still think I'll print TTT's design, simply because it's a best presentation of the design and prints better.

Well, I've finally been able to build TTT's WindSurfer and get out to fly. This is with the Magic Power mode at 24db on both bird and controller.
Some very, very interesting results. And confusing as well.

Notes:
a) I know some pictures say "Controller signal weak". Just bad timing with the screen captures. Every screen capture was with the drone pushed as far as it'd go.
b) All flights performed during the same day, same FW, same flying conditions, minutes apart. Same battery, same app version. Only variant is the drone.
c) This is post fresh flash of FW 1.9.20, fresh Magic Power install on top of that, and fresh install of the Go app (latest version).
b) Before the first flight, I did a compass calibration and a controller frequency re-sync.
___________________________

Flight 1: No Windsurfer.
Distance until signal lost: 412m


________________

Flight 2: Windsurfer installed
Distance until signal lost: 413m


_________________________

I then performed another 2 flights, one without the Windsurfer, and another one with.
3rd flight: No windsurfer
Distance to signal lost: 280m



4th flight: Windsurfer installed
Distance to signal lost: 296m



_____________________

So I started to ask myself, "is the windsurfer even doing anything?" And I thought a good way to answer that was to go as far as I could without the windsurfer installed, and then install it while the drone was in the air, and see if I could get it to go any further.

This is the original Signal Lost distance (351m):


And this is THE SAME FLIGHT after installing the Windsurfer while the drone was still in the air (504m!):


I then did one last test without the Windsurfer, and I got 290m.


____________________________________________________________

Thoughts on the Windsurfer: I'm not 100% sold on it. It seems to sometimes do something, but I wouldn't bank on it. I'll keep it in my case and see if I can apply it in the field and see a noticeable difference. In the meantime, I think the other solutions were FAR more effective.

____________________________________________________________

MY FINDINGS (and how I got twice the distance from my bird... YMMV):

1. If you've recently upgraded FW and see poorer performance, it's not a bad idea to force a fresh flash of the latest FW via the DEBUG file method. This is something I do quite often on other machines (like my Android phone) due to conflicts that arise from gradual upgrades. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU BRICKING YOUR BIRD! If you're gonna do this, you better know what you're doing.

2. Before every flight, do the following:
   a) re-calibrate the compass
   b) re-sync the remote controller frequency.

I know that's old advice, but it really does make a huge difference.

____________________________________________

And that's about all she wrote. I want to thank @Peterx for his tip about a fresh FW flash, @Mark the Droner for his interesting Windsurfer design discussion, and I hope @FatherXmas, @fans6548b447 and djiuser_krPVXymrsWtq can benefit from this little experiment.

See you in the skies, boys and girls!

Good to hear about the results of your experiments. the reach of my P3S is too short to see your bird Keep flying safe and have fun with your bird.

Peterx Posted at 2018-9-8 08:52
Good to hear about the results of your experiments.  the reach of my P3S is too short to see your bird  Keep flying safe and have fun with your bird.

Thank you so much! It was your message about a fresh flash of the FW that got me started in the right path. I'll be forever in your debt, good sir/madam.

idillicah Posted at 2018-9-7 13:25
Well, I've finally been able to build TTT's WindSurfer and get out to fly. This is with the Magic Power mode at 24db on both bird and controller.
Some very, very interesting results. And confusing as well.

Hello and thanks for your tips! I'm experiencing low range (about 70m only) on both of my Phantom 3 Standard aircrafts. Considering switching to FCC mode, however I'd like to try the DEBUG firmware update method first as well. Unfortunately my Phantom 3 doesn't provide any SD card slot on the gimbal. There is only a micro USB connector. SD card slot is on camera body only. Do I have to use camera SD slot instead? Or is there any other way required to do this on such aircraft?

Also I'd like to ask if whether to use Power Magic v5.0 or older v4.0 to switch to FCC mode? I'm using Phantom 3 Standard with most recent firmware 1.9.20.

Thank you very much.