DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Help with installing Alientech Duo II on MA2 controller

nencmeister

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 2, 2020
Messages
124
Reactions
62
Location
NY
Hey guys,

I'm at the 99 yard line with this installation, and I can't figure out what the silver bracket (shown in the photos) screws in to. There is no other part, nut or backplate or anything, if screw into the hole there is nothing holding the screw in place, so the bracket will obviously just fall out of place. Their official video basically skips over this part (around 9:10 minute mark) unless I'm missing something.

Can anyone with experience doing this please let me know if I'm missing something?

Thank you!!


Official install video

 

Attachments

  • 1.JPG
    1.JPG
    1.1 MB · Views: 15
  • 2.jpg
    2.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 18
Looked at the video have you swapped everything from the original bracket and transferred to the new bracket look at the 5:40 min onwards
 
Out of curiosity - the controller has a 10km range, what do you do that you need more? And, the other half of the equation is the drone also needs a commensurate power boost to keep in touch, and unless you modify both transmitters, you're sort of not doing much.

ps: if all you are doing is replacing the antenna to increase controller antenna gain, then it kind of makes sense, but with antenna gain comes added directionality, be prepared to keep that controller accurately pointed once you have the mod working.
 
Last edited:
Out of curiosity - the controller has a 10km range, what do you do that you need more? And, the other half of the equation is the drone also needs a commensurate power boost to keep in touch, and unless you modify both transmitters, you're sort of not doing much.

ps: if all you are doing is replacing the antenna to increase controller antenna gain, then it kind of makes sense, but with antenna gain comes added directionality, be prepared to keep that controller accurately pointed once you have the mod working.
I don’t have a booster, but 10 km would be ideal in perfect circumstances. In reality, you’re not going to get that kind of range in most environments. I’d love to fly even 5 km without risk of signal loss.
 
I don’t have a booster, but 10 km would be ideal in perfect circumstances. In reality, you’re not going to get that kind of range in most environments. I’d love to fly even 5 km without risk of signal loss.
You'll need to fly from an elevated location. Once you do that, you'll easily achieve the advertised 10km range with a completely stock setup, at even 50 feet AGL, as long as you have clear LOS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eEridani
A tree is a great radio energy absorption unit. One of the reasons the satellite folk won't place a dish where it can't see the satellite in the sky. One inch fir needles, for example, are just about perfect half wave antennas for 5.8GHz, near matches for 2.4GHz (but not all fir needles are exactly 1 inch). Buildings and other ground clutter also like to suck up RF.

Anything line of sight between the drone and the controller will reduce range. There are many videos out there of people driving their drones to end of battery life and hitting five miles out. 20 minute usable battery life: 25 if you stretch it: at 25 mph, gives you 10.4 mile travel range, 5.2 miles one way. Some have said adding a yagi set to the stock antennas helps some - but will make the controller much more direction sensitive. But the battery still limits you to 5 miles (on Air 2/s drones).

More watts doesn't improve range in clutter because you generally aren't adding the same watts at the drone side, meaning you can't keep up bidirectional communications and the link will probably drop anyway.

In the end, I've tried seeing just how far I can actually see my drone fly in a large below grade gravel pit (-130' on my controller, lol). At 1000 feet I can't really tell front from side; at 2000 feet the drone is lost against a non-sky background. Until the FAA change the rules in some radical way - what good is a 20 km range even if I had it?
From the log: 08m 09s -128.9 ft 1,052 ft 50% Battery
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: GadgetGuy
A tree is a great radio energy absorption unit. One of the reasons the satellite folk won't place a dish where it can't see the satellite in the sky. One inch fir needles, for example, are just about perfect half wave antennas for 5.8GHz, near matches for 2.4GHz (but not all fir needles are exactly 1 inch). Buildings and other ground clutter also like to suck up RF.

Anything line of sight between the drone and the controller will reduce range. There are many videos out there of people driving their drones to end of battery life and hitting five miles out. 20 minute usable battery life: 25 if you stretch it: at 25 mph, gives you 10.4 mile travel range, 5.2 miles one way. Some have said adding a yagi set to the stock antennas helps some - but will make the controller much more direction sensitive. But the battery still limits you to 5 miles (on Air 2/s drones).

More watts doesn't improve range in clutter because you generally aren't adding the same watts at the drone side, meaning you can't keep up bidirectional communications and the link will probably drop anyway.

In the end, I've tried seeing just how far I can actually see my drone fly in a large below grade gravel pit (-130' on my controller, lol). At 1000 feet I can't really tell front from side; at 2000 feet the drone is lost against a non-sky background. Until the FAA change the rules in some radical way - what good is a 20 km range even if I had it?
From the log: 08m 09s -128.9 ft 1,052 ft 50% Battery
The soon to be released Mavic 3 will be sporting a 46 minute flight time at 15.5mph, and a 15km range! That's almost a 20km range. Add some boosters to both sides like covertdrones.com is offering on the M2P, and the sky is the limit!
 
You'll need to fly from an elevated location. Once you do that, you'll easily achieve the advertised 10km range with a completely stock setup, at even 50 feet AGL, as long as you have clear LOS.
Oh I know. Elevation and LoS
 
I use Allientech not for fly farder but for having a strong signal and sting live feed transmission.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,597
Messages
1,554,228
Members
159,602
Latest member
Tenakeetwo