Dual controllers signal strength

[niki]

Is there a way to improve the radio signal connection between the master and slave remote controllers?
What if the 5.8ghz antenna is replaced with omnidirectional one?

Any thoughts?
Thanks!

 

[The Editor]

Is there a way to improve the radio signal connection between the master and slave remote controllers?
What if the 5.8ghz antenna is replaced with omnidirectional one?

Any thoughts?
Thanks!

I assume we are talking about the Inspire 1 here.....
You can't replace the 5.8ghz antenna individually (well not easily).
The antennas have dual nodes interleaved within their antenna stem and is fed from a single coaxial feed (with two wires leading into the antenna stub).
I have never heard of anyone stripping out just the 5.8ghz feed and modding that on its own.

 

[niki]

I assume we are talking about the Inspire 1 here.....
You can't replace the 5.8ghz antenna individually (well not easily).
The antennas have dual nodes interleaved within their antenna stem and is fed from a single coaxial feed (with two wires leading into the antenna stub).
I have never heard of anyone stripping out just the 5.8ghz feed and modding that on its own.

Thanks for reply!

I thought it can be upgraded as in most youtube videos for modding the antennas, the 5.8ghz antenna is stripped and left inside the remote. I asume this can be done in other way, instead of hiding the antenna inside the remote to put a good one outside. But haven't found one doing it, I guess because the dual remote is much rarelly used by the folks who are looking for extended range.

 

[The Editor]

Thanks for reply!

I thought it can be upgraded as in most youtube videos for modding the antennas, the 5.8ghz antenna is stripped and left inside the remote. I asume this can be done in other way, instead of hiding the antenna inside the remote to put a good one outside. But haven't found one doing it, I guess because the dual remote is much rarelly used by the folks who are looking for extended range.

In theory I guess it could be done, but as you say, I’ve never seen anyone do it!

 

[nickedw]

Is there a way to improve the radio signal connection between the master and slave remote controllers?
What if the 5.8ghz antenna is replaced with omnidirectional one?

Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Standing closer to each other will work perfectly?

 

[niki]

Standing closer to each other will work perfectly?

Unfortunatelly not, and it depends per location.

There are places out of town where we are the only people around and the signal breaks in a way that we can't pull out the shot we need, it's very furstrating. And that happens when standing 2m from each other, at the same time on the master the signal is perfect. Sometimes 10 min later the connection is good enough to pull the shot, but this is not working in most of the cases as for example when shooting in blue or golden hour there is no time for such a things and we loose the day if the connection start breaking on the slave.

So far we are strugling with an hdmi cabe feeding a monitor but this is also a dumb solution.

 

[The Editor]

Unfortunatelly not, and it depends per location.

There are places out of town where we are the only people around and the signal breaks in a way that we can't pull out the shot we need, it's very furstrating. And that happens when standing 2m from each other, at the same time on the master the signal is perfect. Sometimes 10 min later the connection is good enough to pull the shot, but this is not working in most of the cases as for example when shooting in blue or golden hour there is no time for such a things and we loose the day if the connection start breaking on the slave.

So far we are strugling with an hdmi cabe feeding a monitor but this is also a dumb solution.

Just out of interest.... do you put all your phones/devices and those around you into airplane mode?
I have this written into my ops manual as a risk mitigation step.
I also ask that any observers/clients do the same whilst I am airborne if they are in close proximity. (Kind of like the airlines asking for all Mobile devices to be switched off or put into airplane mode prior to take off).
Give it a try next time.....you may see some improvement.

 

[niki]

Just out of interest.... do you put all your phones/devices and those around you into airplane mode?
I have this written into my ops manual as a risk mitigation step.
I also ask that any observers/clients do the same whilst I am airborne if they are in close proximity. (Kind of like the airlines asking for all Mobile devices to be switched off or put into airplane mode prior to take off).
Give it a try next time.....you may see some improvement.

Yes we do turn off all radio devices it's a bit better but the problem still persist at some degree. By the way when we are with a big crew I asume most of the guys are ignoring our request and I need solution that works in that case as well.
I also downgraded the fw to 1.8 which made some improvement but still the slave is not working in the way it should.

 

[niki]

So I have modded the master controller by adding sma connector for every antenna, 3 of them. The result is really good compared to stock antennas.
I guess after I upgrade the slave controller as well it will be even better as there are still some small glitches but overall it's a different world, we don't need the stupid hdmi cable connection to a reference monitor anymore, it's different story for the producers monitor. but now we can connect the producers monitor to the slave remote which solves a lot of problems for the pilot.

I have done some experiments with different antennas for the main link and for the video link between master and slave antennas. Finally the best overall performance (I'm not looking for distance record) I get with ArgTek omni directional 2.4ghz antennas for the main and from 3 different 5.8ghz antennas (2 omni directional and 1 cloverleaf) the best was one was the omni taken from an fpv monitor.

The only drawback is that I have to mount and dismount antennas now, but definitely a great upgrade.