My pal and i tried antenna attachments last week, both yagi style and parabolic style. We were both super sceptical, and expected no difference, but the costs were low and it was a laugh. To set the scene, we fly over a private highland estate, the owner knows, my holiday home is 100 meters from his house and there is no one on the estate. One way in, one way out, and no aircraft (other than jets at 30k feet) over it in a decade to my knowledge. The surrounding estates are super quiet, so longer ranges are not an issue. This sets the background of why and how we fly like we do at this location. Its in the spirit of the rules, altitude is legal, LOS is direct line, but we cannot see the mini or air for sure, though, risk assessed its safe - enough said, i am simply setting the scene.
We have a pond high on the hill, and this is kind of our target, a location we see wildlife and like to get to there. Its 1800 meters from my place, and 220 meters above the take off point. My mm has never made it before, the air has never made it. The pro makes it no bother and the inspire makes it, but loses signal and can be very shakey, its only a matter of time before an issue.
Conditions were fine, calm, slight mist, no midges and basically dry at the base of the hill, some mist above the hill.
We re-set all the drones to 2.4 gh where possible. Struggled to decide which yagi was correct for this and after some you tube videos decided on the correct one and spent the morning doing tests. To our amazement, all the drones managed to get to the pond. Indeed all were able to go further, 2200 meters each, easily and the batterys became the limiting factor and not the signal. It always was in the past. The Yagi ariels worked best on the MM and air, the difference was superb, and they went from fun toys to incredibly useful, particularly the quiet small mini, as in light wind conditions it would be so small and quiet the wildlife / deer would not notice it. The air, with the quiet props would be fine in slightly stronger winds.
The inspires control now has super large parabolic reflectors on them. Both flew to the pond in minutes, with no shakey video, no loss of signal, indeed all was well for the first time. The pond is actually 197 meters above us and we fly at 220 meters when there, so not far above the ground. The smaller drones are effected by wind there, as its a hill top, and take off point is already at considerable height, the inspires were sent to higher altitude, 100 meters above the hill top, and were steady and stable, I expect on a windier day the wind will be an issue, but the inspire and pro's will be able to buck this to an extent, and hopefully they will be able to see the animals without spooking them, so we see natural behaviour.
Anyway, from a a total sceptic i am sold on them, I have ordered yagi's for each drone, as the mavics and inspires have different aerials. The smaller drones have not had full tets with the parabolics yet, but next week we will be doing this for sure. I have ordered parayagi's, and will see if this duel signal extenders make a bigger difference. Anyway, i have explained how and why i have flown to these ranges, and am totally convinced that the signal extenders work in my situation and location
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