Mavic Radio Mods Primer

[droneuser]

**** another adapter....I will be needing that 8 watt just so I can make up for all the dbi loss...lol


where did you get your 20dbi panel at?

 

[mnoutdoors]

**** another adapter....I will be needing that 8 watt just so I can make up for all the dbi loss...lol


where did you get your 20dbi panel at?

Altelix 2.4 GHz 20dBi High Gain WiFi Panel Antenna with Mast Mount Kit N Female | eBay

 

[droneuser]

ok thanks for the links I have to wait intill my amps get here.....ya those 4 watts run hot iam going to add a fans that will help with the themo drift too!

 

[mnoutdoors]

The panel antenna needs one of these

https://www.amazon.com/Eightwood-RP...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Z4058PE0W50X8QGGDFXH

 

[droneuser]

ahhh ok I would assume you have two panels

 

[mnoutdoors]

ahhh ok I would assume you have two panels

Left side of picture

 

[beanbubba]

Agreed, where are you located? Right now I’m in Arizona

One thing I did notice was the tempature difference! I ordered a infrared temp reading unit just now.....the 4w unit
Gets burning hot the 8w unit barely warm in the same amount of time.

I am in Texas, but could be convinced for a road trip drone-vacation

 

[droneuser]

Left side of picture

yup you do what do you use for a screen? apple or android ?

 

[mnoutdoors]

iPad

 

[droneuser]

what app do you uses for screen recording?

 

[lolo780]

I've had good results with AZ screen recorder for android.

 

[droneuser]

I've had good results with AZ screen recorder for android.

I am not sure if they have that for ios I will have to check....

yes I know ios has a built in screen record BUT I am having some problems with it...its not a smooth recording for me so I hope to find something that works better

 

[mnoutdoors]

I inquired on the 8watt amp from China This is what I got back notice the listed watts, I reinquired about
8 watt and larger have not received that yet.

Thanks for your inquiry of our product. I am Yiven from EDUP China.

We are specialized with network products for 14 years in Shenzhen.


Regarding to the model EP-AB003, it is one of our hot selling WiFi amplifier.

* 2.4G 5W power

* Extend the range 800~1000 meters

* Well work for drone, router, wifi camera, WIFI Fish Finder...


The sample price is USD$31.8/PC

For 50pcs: USD$27.0/PC


The stock wifi amplifier is metal black housing.


May I know how many pieces do you need?


The enclosed are the pictures of present amplifiers.

Any question, please contact me.



Thanks,

Yiven

 

[droneuser]

So if I understand you right you was asking about the 8 watt but answer you about a 5 watt?

 

[mnoutdoors]

So if I understand you right you was asking about the 8 watt but answer you about a 5 watt?

Yes listed as 8w he sent these specs, so what I’m wondering have they throttled it down?

In this video front of box says 8w back of box 32 seconds in listed in spec says 5W, in any case I know they work
But have they been changed at some point.

 

[droneuser]

Yes listed as 8w he sent these specs, so what I’m wondering have they throttled it down?

In this video front of box says 8w back of box 32 seconds in listed in spec says 5W, in any case I know they work
But have they been changed at some point.

well that may be the reason why when he tested it ...it showed a different reading!

 

[Brett 21]

Fellow enthusiasts,

I am coming up on a year as a mavic enthusiast. When I joined this forum, the veterans had been here since the product launched in October 2016 and it has been a fun and entertaining journey with all you fellow techno nerd/geeks (who are my favorite people in the world).

I have learned from the literally multiple thousands of posts here that the majority of us are career engineers or technologists in one discipline or another. In all my dealings with groups over my life, this is the smartest/cleverest concentration of folks I have ever worked with and it is truly a pleasure to interact and socialize with most of you.

My career technology has been with commercial Wi-Fi radio systems. After many many hours of observing and testing the mavic radio systems over the last year, I have concluded that the proprietary mavic radio systems are very closely related to the Wi-Fi radio chipsets and protocol behaviors. Subsequently, we are able to leverage hardware and techniques in the Wi-Fi world to the mavic radio systems to scratch the itch of those "mod" freaks in our group of enthusiasts.

I have a years worth of scattered posts in many threads that are very technical and not very useable for the typical drone pilot. So I decided to start a new thread here to compile and boil down the most usable bits of information related to mavic radio system mods for both the remote control (RC) and aircraft (AC).

I will have a few main sections to this thread. The first to be detailed now is what I am calling the "baseline" that covers the factory radio settings for the RC and AC. Once that is fully covered in detail, I will post the next section that enables the mavic radio "boost" mod and then compare it against the baseline. If we do not get the baseline details out of the way first, anything after that has no reference and IMHO is useless information. Then I have 4 different models of RF amplifiers to test on both the RC and AC and report the performance of each device. And along the way, I will test a handful of the most popular antennas and report their performance.

All of this will take some time, but I will try to add regular updates weekly until all of the variations have been tested and reported.

Regards,
@beanbubba

:::

NOTE: I WILL EDIT THIS INITIAL POST WITH VIDEO UPDATES, CHECK BACK HERE FOR UPDATES OVER TIME.

:::

Mavic Radio System Observations 1.0
Baseline bird side.

Mavic Radio System Observations 1.1
Baseline remote controller side.

Mavic Radio System Observations 2.0
New bird side baseline.

Mavic Radio System Observations 2.1
Birdside amplifier baseline.

I have been delayed publishing a new Mavic radio observation video because my spectrum analyzer traffic generator has a peak output of 0 dBm and all the amplifiers we have under test have a minimum input trigger of 3-5 dBm. So I ordered a 20 dBm continuous carrier amp from china that took a month to arrive.

Anyway, the new video version 3.0 is now published and gives great insight that we have not seen before and only previously speculated on the facts. Nothing surprising except for the "8W" amp recently introduced to the forum. It greatly underperformed in TX gain, but was extraordinary with RX gain. This was not expected at all. I triple ran the tests to make sure and this really puts a new wrinkle on overall radio system performance.

I have a couple more significant items to test and will post upcoming videos soon. But the amp comparison video was a long awaited item and I hope you find it insightful and beneficial to your mod's.

@beanbubba


Mavic Radio System Observations 3.0

It's great to have your knowledge and experience in this forum.Thanks for the detailed video testing of booster.As a buyer of the Argtek series antenna(unboosted)for my Phantoms,I was disappointed with results.Was considering the same Sunhans model tested but purchasing two at 75.00 dinero a piece, I washesitant.Looking at the dragon,I would've assumed marginal performance gains based on price and looks(you gotta admit,Sunhans "looks" cooler).At 25.00 bucks AND outperforming Sunhans,I'll be giving it a second look.As far as antennas go,I know Titans Cyclone,etc and the Drone MAXX are hot right now,I cringe at the near 300 dollar mark.I hope your testing includes FPVLR Magic Pro CP helical antenna kit for $129 or their Magic Bag I kit for $99 dollars as these are much more reasonable.Course,a shootout featuring the cheaper yet Alfa panels would be interesting as well,especially after seeing the dragons performance.I know you can't be expected to buy every combination out there so thanks again for publishing results.By the way,I have no interest in flying 55 miles away from launch,I want uninterrupted, glitch free video transmission in heavily wooded forests/lakes,etc and the confidence to push it maybe 3 miles tops in secluded places and the confidence to bring it back home.Nothing more disappointing than giving a viewer an "airplane" tour of a large lake or river then turning around because of transmission loss and having to edit over it.

 

[Brett 21]

As it won't let me edit(spam or abusive language??????)MAVIC CP(not magic)and MAVIC YAGI(not bag)

 

[SkyNinja]

Here is the conclusion from the end of the video version 3.0 if you didn't watch it:

View attachment 33920

Beanbubba are you able to tell what the signal to noise ratio is with the amps you tested? I don’t have a background in this stuff but I keep hearing people say it’s much better to have a weaker clean signal than a strong noisy signal. I don't know how true that is.


I did some nonscientific testing(mean without any of that cool equipment that you have) fighting my MP in my high wifi congested urban neighborhood using two19db flat panel directional antennas. The 3 Amplifier listed below greatly outperformed the SUNHANS SH-RC24G3W 3W Amplifiers and Titan Atlas amplifiers.


1. HyperLink 2.4 GHz 1000 mW HA2401-AGC1000 (1W)
2. RF LINX 2400SAXU (1W very popular amplifier in the phantompilots forum for flying inside a house or vehicle)
3. YDI AMP2440 2.4 GHZ (?W)

 

[beanbubba]

Beanbubba are you able to tell what the signal to noise ratio is with the amps you tested? I don’t have a background in this stuff but I keep hearing people say it’s much better to have a weaker clean signal than a strong noisy signal. I don't know how true that is.


I did some nonscientific testing(mean without any of that cool equipment that you have) fighting my MP in my high wifi congested urban neighborhood using two19db flat panel directional antennas. The 3 Amplifier listed below greatly outperformed the SUNHANS SH-RC24G3W 3W Amplifiers and Titan Atlas amplifiers.


1. HyperLink 2.4 GHz 1000 mW HA2401-AGC1000 (1W)
2. RF LINX 2400SAXU (1W very popular amplifier in the phantompilots forum for flying inside a house or vehicle)
3. YDI AMP2440 2.4 GHZ (?W)

Most amp's introduce very little additional noise and it would be negligible. BUT all amp's not only amply the desired signal, they amplify the entire noise floor (garbage in, garbage out).

Your statement: "better to have a weaker clean signal than a strong noisy signal" is neutral in effect. It's best to have signal at the level required that is above the noise floor. There is always a noise floor, but it's higher in NYC than in the Arizona desert.

In laymen terms using audio as an example, a busy airport terminal would have a high noise floor. A library study room would have a low noise floor. In the library you can whisper to the person next to you and fully communicate effectively. In the airport you would have increase your voice signal to exceed the noise floor so that the person next to you can understand what you are saying. Neither example is better than the other as long as the other person could decode your voice payload and effectively communicate with you. To take a step further, in that busy airport if the person you were talking to stepped away say 30 feet, you might have to cup your hands around your mouth to focus the sound towards the other person. Well, these high gain panel antennas are doing the exact same function and focusing the signal where directed.

Not sure if I answered all your questions.