Mavic aircraft RC antenna location?

[beanbubba]

I have scoured youtube watching all the mavic disassembles and can't find a single one that shows the RC antennas and where they are located inside the aircraft (you can see the coax attachments to the main board next to the Wifi). All of them show the removal of the Wifi chip, but no reference to the second pair of RC coax and antennas. Considering some mods and want to avoid blocking the antenna locations externally. Any pictures would be welcomed.

Image reference from Nils:

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[Plawa]

Well you could always just look into the manual.. page 8 - the antennae are in the vertical section of the front legs.

 

[Flawless]

They're routed into the front arms - the antenna are in the front "landing gear".

 

[beanbubba]

Well you could always just look into the manual.. page 8 - the antennae are in the vertical section of the front legs.

Sorry for the newbie question, I searched everywhere BUT the user manual

 

[brodz]

I looked in the front legs and see 1 antenna in each..so the mavic only uses 2 antennas unlike the phantoms with 4.is that correct? Weres the wifi antennas in the rear legs?

 

[JustusLM]

The manual still doesn't answer the question fully. From the video (and the image) it is appearant that there are four antennas, since there are four connectors. While it would be technically possible to put two antennas in each leg, that's very unlikely. Instead, it would be a design like the Phantom 3 SE, that also uses only two antennas.
This leaves the question where the additional two antennas are on the Mavic.
The ones in the legs are very likely to be the Ocusync/RC antennas, with two additional ones for Wi-Fi (perhaps in particular for 5.8G, which the RC doesn't have).

But where are those?

 

[beanbubba]

The manual still doesn't answer the question fully. From the video (and the image) it is appearant that there are four antennas, since there are four connectors. While it would be technically possible to put two antennas in each leg, that's very unlikely. Instead, it would be a design like the Phantom 3 SE, that also uses only two antennas.
This leaves the question where the additional two antennas are on the Mavic.
The ones in the legs are very likely to be the Ocusync/RC antennas, with two additional ones for Wi-Fi (perhaps in particular for 5.8G, which the RC doesn't have).

But where are those?

The 2 antennas (on the front legs) are shared between the Wifi and mavic RC radio. If you open up your bird you will see the coax connectors coming from the wifi board connecting to the main system board where the front leg antenna coax connectors are.

 

[JustusLM]

The 2 antennas (on the front legs) are shared between the Wifi and mavic RC radio. If you open up your bird you will see the coax connectors coming from the wifi board connecting to the main system board where the front leg antenna coax connectors are.

Oh ok, that explains it.

EDIT: I just checked it, you can even see it in the video linked at the top. At 16:14 he removes the cables and you can see how short they are. He calls them "antennas" but I guess that's just one of those random "brain says goodbye for a sec" moment that everybody knows and has at times.

 

[Simmo]

Oh ok, that explains it.

Like one would be 1/4 wave at 5.8 and 1/2 wave at 2.4???

Sorry, I quoted the wrong member!

 

[JustusLM]

Like one would be 1/4 wave at 5.8 and 1/2 wave at 2.4???

Sorry, I quoted the wrong member!

Wouldn't it have to be 1/4 wave at 2.4 and ~1/2 at 5.8 since 2.4 has the longer wavelength?
Regardless, it doesn't work perfectly anyway (since 5.8 is not 2.4*2) and my guess would be that the antennas are precisely 1/4 wave at 2.4G (so approximately 3cm long) and close to 1/2 wave at 5.8G (which would be about 2.5cm).
This guess is based on the fact that the controller only supports the 2.4G band, meaning that OcuSync on the Mavic is – unlike to Ocusync on the P4P – limited to 2.4G and I think the connection would be optimized for that, which also means both antennas are probably like this.
5.8G is only used if the drone guesses that it gets less interference than 2.4G when connecting to your phone via Wi-Fi, at least that's how it should be, but it might "prefer" 5.8G in general.

Now, I haven't taken the Mavic apart and I don't have a degree in physics or engineering, but that's my somewhat educated guess on how the antennas are.

 

[beanbubba]

Oh ok, that explains it.

EDIT: I just checked it, you can even see it in the video linked at the top. At 16:14 he removes the cables and you can see how short they are. He calls them "antennas" but I guess that's just one of those random "brain says goodbye for a sec" moment that everybody knows and has at times.

Those short coax jumpers connect to the Wifi radio chip at the far rear end of the bird next to the LEDs. Many of us remove it for weight savings since hardly anyone flys with the wifi radio.