I have a question for you guys and gals. a buddy of mine told me about these Parabolic Antenna Range Extenders and swears they work. he said he tested it out first with out it and then with and claims to have gotten a extra half mile with it. he only paid 10.00 bucks for them at amazon. https://www.amazon.com/IRUIS-Con ... phantom+4+parabolic    my question is does any of you have or tried one. I thought about giving it a shot since it is only 10 bucks.  thanks

I believe they do work to some extent as it will reflect signal from the backside out towards the front. You won’t get any gain but it sort of fills in some void, Which also makes it fairly directional so keep antennas pointed at aircraft at all times. Get the set where the two parabolic dishes are attached and this will also help in keeping antennas in proper allignment.

Archangel3356 Posted at 2018-2-20 14:25
I believe they do work to some extent as it will reflect signal from the backside out towards the front. You won’t get any gain but it sort of fills in some void, Which also makes it fairly directional so keep antennas pointed at aircraft at all times. Get the set where the two parabolic dishes are attached and this will also help in keeping antennas in proper allignment.

cool thanks

I'd like a comment on the signal boosters for sale on Amazon. $60 Has anyone tried one of those with a P4?

Got a link?

Yes they do work well but i wouldnt recommend for novice pilots.
They become very directional if you dont ooint the mirrors towards the drone at all times during your flight you can very easily loose signal.
Not to mention the fact that if you require one of these mirrors then obviously you are flying outside of vlos rules and posibly putting your drone, people and property at risk.
If you fly vlos then there should never be a need to use them.

trooper1 Posted at 2018-2-20 15:35
I'd like a comment on the signal boosters for sale on Amazon. $60 Has anyone tried one of those with a P4?

Are you referring to Itelite?

this is the signal extender I'm referring to:  https://www.amazon.com/BlueProto ... ntom+signal+booster     I apologize for not inserting it before.  Hellsgate, I agree with you about not flying BLOS. However, last week we encountered some interference flying 200' over a farm field pivot 1,400' out. Easily within LoS. The P4 took put itseft into ATTI mode.  Fortunately we were able to fly it away from the interfence and get it back into P mode. We'd like to get all of the signal boost we can for these sorts of situations. My state agency will be flying up against dams  Thanks for warning me that with the parabolic antennas, we could potentially block he signal if we have the antennas faced wrong. Didn't thing of that. I'd appreciate someone giving me their opinion of the signal booster in the amazon link

I found the parabolic range extender ineffective and a waste of money. That is just my opinion.

A P4-consutant-friend of mine fabricated parabolic antennas from tin foil and cardboard and swears it helps. I'm curious about the signal booster.

I just checked out the  Itelite signal booster. That's within our budget. I'm wondering if it would work with a P4 pro

Hellsgate Posted at 2018-2-20 16:13
Yes they do work well but i wouldnt recommend for novice pilots.
They become very directional if you dont ooint the mirrors towards the drone at all times during your flight you can very easily loose signal.
Not to mention the fact that if you require one of these mirrors then obviously you are flying outside of vlos rules and posibly putting your drone, people and property at risk.

great thank you

Only ever time ive seen a drone switch to atti mode was due to signal loss in the gps module.
This could have been caused by a magnetic field or microwave interference but you state that you could still fly in atti mode which tells me that you didnt loose signal between the remote and the drone. A signal booster of any kind would not help you in that situation.  I would be very cautious flying in that area again

Heavenly View Posted at 2018-2-20 17:08
I found the parabolic range extender ineffective and a waste of money. That is just my opinion.

Totally agree.

Hellsgate, thanks for the technical appraisal and explaining the diff. That was the second time we had a problem in that same area; thought it was just a problem at a low altitude, We'll stay clear of it now. We already bought the parabolic antenna; we'll try that. Being in remote areas of Nevada, we have lots of flat, vacant ground, with no trees and few intervening ridges, so it's common for us to push the bird out as far as we can barely see it.

All good.
Many people dont realise that gps signals are in the microwave bandwidth.
These signals act the same as your microwave oven at home. Anything organic will absorb the microwaves, anything metalic will reflect the microwaves and anything magnetic will distort the microwaves. Even the very small magnetic field associated with power lines can have an effect on gps signals. And because gps signals are very weak they can easily be affected by the above 3 situations. Thats why it can sometimes be difficult to get a gps lock in an area with lots of trees.

I didn't know that the signals were in the microwave spectrum; fascinating. It was a gps interference as I now remember the details, not a signal thing, since we had continuous telemetry. I'll pass your comments onto our pilot candidates. Thank you for the interesting discussion this evening.

Those that do not agree that the parabolics do any good must have used a dodgy set or put it on backwards, i have just a cheapo set of ebay and they are brilliant, they nearly double my distance or they did do when i was only about to get about 5-600m, i was able to do 1200m, now my p4p with the para's can easily do 2500m and did  manage 3116m not too long back, this is in Crummy European mode, i am out this morning testing the GPS lock, so i will try to video things if i can or remember to do it and show a test with and without the para's. will report back later with my findings and hopefully a video

Bashy Posted at 2018-2-20 21:20
Those that do not agree that the parabolics do any good must have used a dodgy set or put it on backwards, i have just a cheapo set of ebay and they are brilliant, they nearly double my distance or they did do when i was only about to get about 5-600m, i was able to do 1200m, now my p4p with the para's can easily do 2500m and did  manage 3116m not too long back, this is in Crummy European mode, i am out this morning testing the GPS lock, so i will try to video things if i can or remember to do it and show a test with and without the para's. will report back later with my findings and hopefully a video

You only getting 3.1 klms out of your paras i do better than that without them on best distance so far 4.96 klms away no mirrors.
If i were to use them i could probably 6 klms but unfortunately battery wouldnt last long enough to get back.

Are you CE or FCC?
Specified Max for CE is 3.5km so it didnt do too bad

Im an aussie dont talk all that fcc n ce stuff i have no idea what it means
I just look at how far away from me did it go on that particular flight.
I know i was a bad boy and way out of my vlos range but hey you gotta test the limits lol

An AC that loses GPS and goes into ATTI is having issues with satellite reception for whatever reason.  

Microwave ovens are in the 2.2 ghz range which is close to the 2.4 ghz range.  I've never heard of a microwave signal interfering with GPS which uses a completely different frequency.  

For those who think the windsurfer is junk, compare how many top distance pilots have records with the windsurfer relative to those with stock alone.

https://phantompilots.com/thread ... -leaderboard.76464/

It's also interesting to note how many top distance pilots use the ARGTEK antenna.

Obviously, the windsurfer is a simple mod.  If I was going to do a serious antenna mod, it wouldn't occur to me to go with anything less than an ITELITE.  

I work a lot with satellite equipment including sat phones gps etc i was just trying to give a simple explanation as to a posible cause for this fault and yes i have seen microwave transmitters in the local area cause interference with gps signals. I was mearly using the microwave oven as a reference that everyone can relate to.  

I like to use the kiss principal without getting technical most people have no idea and honestly dont care about the technicalities of such things they just want the bloody thing to work

I just wanted to thank everyone for your help. I really appreciate it.

When I first got into the hobby (obsession now actually) I was constantly battling local area RF affecting the controllable range and image transmission from my P4..  I decided to pick up one of the $10.00 parabolic deflectors and it most certainly did make a great impact on the P4s range and FPV returned image quality.  I have since upgraded one of my controllers to the replaceable types and have gained a little more range control.  The biggest thing to remember is to KEEP THE ANTENNAS POINTING DIRECTLY AT THE AC.  Not doing so will (if far enough away) create a loss of controller signal and force the ac into RTH..  even at what would normally be a close flight distance.

The controller on the right I use almost exclusively but with the longer Omni directional dipole antennas that are laying in the foreground.

On my Spark, a set of the Paraboloics increased the  controller range to a point of over double the normal distance.  Just also know that different RF transmissions in the area you fly will also have a BIG impact on your own results.

Watch this video about range extenders.  The guy basically shows how they actually DO increase the ability to transmit to the bird.

cool thanks

Heavenly View Posted at 2018-2-20 17:08
I found the parabolic range extender ineffective and a waste of money. That is just my opinion.

Then justify your answer.

Also, it is quite weirdo if you are in occusync but then still using the parabolic antenna.

fans80790c69 Posted at 2-23 00:30
Then justify your answer.

Also, it is quite weirdo if you are in occusync but then still using the parabolic antenna.

Sorry but it sounds like you're a little confused.  

DJI uses linear (vertical) polarity antennas.  

The name of whatever signal is using these antennas doesn't change the way the antenna works.  The signal is still a linear polarity signal because it's being transmitted with a linear polarity antenna.  Radio signals deflect (or bounce).  So if you can figure out a way to deflect an errant linear polarity signal back towards its receiver without changing the phase of the deflected signal, you will have a stronger signal on the receiving end.  That is what the windsurfer or parabolic antenna attempts to do.  The trick is to have the deflector "tuned" correctly so it's the correct width and also the correct distance from the transmitting antenna.  If it is tuned correctly and if the antenna is aimed correctly and there aren't other problems, the signal will be stronger on the receiving end and weaker on the back end.  If it's a little out of tune, there will be no difference compared to using no deflector.  If it's a lot out of tune, it'll make the signal worse compared to no deflector.  Regardless, wifi, Lightbridge, occusync, facsimile, analog, or any other name you want to put on the transmission doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it's still a linear polarity signal which can benefit from in-phase deflection provided it's done correctly.

Deflectors can also increase range by blocking out interference coming from the back or the sides.  

One cannot just slap-happy a deflector behind an antenna and think it'll work correctly.  It's a little bit more involved.  

http://freeantennas.com/projects/template/med_template.jpg