Boosted Antenna system with Dish

[Shivers]

NICE. Your inside doing this??

 

[Possums]

NICE. Your inside doing this??

Of course .... I would have to have someone outside - following the drone around VLOS
But yes - inside with the CrystalSky hooked to the computer monitor & the googles on "head tracking" so I can see the little branches before I hit one.

 

[AnzacJack]

What sort of range did you get
It appears to be very impressive..

 

[Possums]

What sort of range did you get

That was only a couple of thousand feet from my house before I ran into the hiker - so not really that far.
I know I can go a lot farther if I go up 200 or 300 feet. But that's not want I wanted to do.
I have had just the "boosted Atlas antenna" from Titan before and could only get to the backyard of my neighbor's house across the street before it would lose connection from the trees or whatever. Besides, you can get one of these dishes from the dump or buy a new one for $30.

 

[AnzacJack]

At that height with all the ground clutter, very impressive.

 

[Shivers]

Wicked man! You get that battery yet!?

 

[Shivers]

Also if you Mount that to the back of the dish, and take out a foot of cable on each line, you’ll gain more DB.
This reminds me of when I was making antenna with LM400. And some brass... My girl thought I was nuts.

 

[smokeyx]

Blasting thru the wall & the trees - cool, but excuse the low resolution video

View attachment 86187

It's very likely that this "rig" isn't doing you any good. The larger whip antennas themselves (if they are even the correct length for the Mavic radio's wavelength) will do far more good than the dish. A small satellite dish like this one is designed for receiving a signal and focusing it onto dish LNB antenna. In order to make this effective you would need an actual feed horn that directs the signal onto the reflector. Omni directional whip antennas are not feed horns.

Its pretty likely that you are degrading the signal. if the distance between the whips and the reflector are not correct you can actually create harmonic signals that the transceiver on the drone sees as interference.

 

[Thomas B]

Of course .... I would have to have someone outside - following the drone around VLOS

I believe FAA requires the PIC to have actual VLOS.

 

[Possums]

It's very likely that this "rig" isn't doing you any good. The larger whip antennas themselves (if they are even the correct length for the Mavic radio's wavelength) will do far more good than the dish.

I don't know near as much as you about that. But ...I have both the Titan Atlas boosted antenna system ( Omni directional) and the Titan Cyclone boosted antenna system (Directional) and both sizes of their whip antennas.. neither one of these will let me go any where near as far through the trees (at two feet off the ground) by themselves. So I don't know.

 

[Possums]

I believe FAA requires the PIC to have actual VLOS.

I know, that's why I got that observer following the drone & watching out so those dang planes don't fly down in the trees and hit my frickin drone.

 

[Fadly]

I wish DJI include some form of beamforming technology in their controller.

 

[AnzacJack]

It's very likely that this "rig" isn't doing you any good. The larger whip antennas themselves (if they are even the correct length for the Mavic radio's wavelength) will do far more good than the dish. A small satellite dish like this one is designed for receiving a signal and focusing it onto dish LNB antenna. In order to make this effective you would need an actual feed horn that directs the signal onto the reflector. Omni directional whip antennas are not feed horns.

Its pretty likely that you are degrading the signal. if the distance between the whips and the reflector are not correct you can actually create harmonic signals that the transceiver on the drone sees as interference.

And yet if what the user is reporting is true, then it’s very likely you are wrong. End of the day, evidence of such a setup vs other setups (as described by the OP) shows that it does work, and works very well. Sometimes theory vs real life doesn’t always match up.
I would also have said that this setup would give great results, but the proof seems to be in the pudding.
Of course, there is also the chance that the OP is spinning us a line, but can’t see why he would do this.

 

[Fadly]

It's very likely that this "rig" isn't doing you any good. The larger whip antennas themselves (if they are even the correct length for the Mavic radio's wavelength) will do far more good than the dish. A small satellite dish like this one is designed for receiving a signal and focusing it onto dish LNB antenna. In order to make this effective you would need an actual feed horn that directs the signal onto the reflector. Omni directional whip antennas are not feed horns.

Its pretty likely that you are degrading the signal. if the distance between the whips and the reflector are not correct you can actually create harmonic signals that the transceiver on the drone sees as interference.

Do you think we can do better with a yagi antenna style, like adding a parasitic element in front of the controller's existing antenna?

 

[AnzacJack]

My experience with yagi’s Is very impressive. But having said that, I was using them for video feed back before lightbridge, occusync etc. And I wasn’t getting any further range than what DJI systems give me today. But when used with old tech, I was getting 10 times more range with a good yagi setup. (Sounds impressive, but in reality, this was a move from around 200m to around 2km, with absolutely clear LOS)

 

[Possums]

Wicked man! You get that battery yet!?

 

[Shivers]

What!? Wait. What are you doing