Your biggest issue is the receiver antenna. It is not omnidirectional at all !
I tested similar, if not identical antenna, and the beam was so narrow that was impossible to make anything than ground tests with permanent manual aiming. I am amazed you are able to fly using this antenna !
Try with the stock antenna, should be much better in 500m radius.
Try keep transmitter antenna vertical.

And prepare to next step... build yourself a pair of CP antennas.

Originally Posted by alek3d

Hi, would you mind giving some advises to a newbie in FPV? I just bought 200 mW system from Foxtechfpv with stock antennas. I also bought 11 dBi panel patch antenna for RC305. I read on earlier pages that I should better use 2S LiPo for RX, I currently use 3S, so I will reconsider that.

My first experiences are quite positive, I am not going for length records, flying around within 1 km is ok for me.

1. The video system seem to have strange channel setup settings. When I set on RX channel 1, then I have to set channel 8 on TX, when RX ch. 2, then TX ch. 7 etc. Is this normal?

2. I made a few test flights so far and according to my calculations and my estimations I flew within range about up to 300 m of the line of sight. Signal was ok, I just experienced some occassional signal drops for like 0.5 seconds. Sometimes the blackout was longer, like 1.5 seconds. Also, I think it was worse when I was flying low and quite close to myself.

What is the best place to put my transmitter on the plane? Where should TX antenna point for the best performance (up, horizontal, down)? Look in the picture, this is how I have it now. My plane is Beta 1400 aka Bixler aka SkySurfer (all the same)

3. My 11 dBi patch antenna is supposed to be omni directional. Does it matter in what position it is?

Thanks!

1)
It's not like this. You are just interpreting the switches the wrong way, most likely on the receiver.

If you put the rx flat in front of you such that you can read the text "channel" normally, then a switch that is in the DOWN position is logically "on". Switch number 4 is not connected on both the rx and tx. They form a locical binary pattern where the switch number (numbered as 1 to 4 from the left) represent the binary weight. Alas if all switches are up (binary zero) this equals to channel 1, if the #1 is down, this is channel 2. If i.e. 1 and 3 are down this is binary 5, alas channel 6 etc. etc.

2) You need circular polarized antennas. Forget the patch you have and the linear antennas. Started the exactly same way long ago and switched to CP antennas. If they are well made, you can reach ~3km omnidirectional.

3) No, it's NOT omnidirectional. Gain and directivity mean basically the same as there is no real "gain", it's directivity and as the term defines means it is NOT omnidirectional. The flat side has to look towards the plane but again, dump that antenna and go for a skew planar wheel on the receiver and a cloverleaf on the transmitter.

HTH

Markus

Originally Posted by futurebreeze

Hi!

Today we did it, we reached over 10 km with a 200mW 5.8 gHz video TX. Cloverleaf antenna and 8 turns helix, of course. My mate figured out a method to tune these antennas with a directional coupler and some other electronic stuff and the results were better than we expected.
Too bad we didn't have a ground video recorder but I did my best with my Lumix cu take some photos and shoot some short videos. Maybe I'll edit everything and publish on youtube but for now, here there are the 10 km proofs:

...

You forgot to tell about the 3600meters using CL - SPW
Not sure if this combo distances are recorded somewhere, and we have no proof of this distance anyway, but for me was the biggest simple CP distance I read so far.

(doh! just saw the similar responses posted by others, deleted.)

Originally Posted by RENATOA

You forgot to tell about the 3600meters using CL - SPW
Not sure if this combo distances are recorded somewhere, and we have no proof of this distance anyway, but for me was the biggest simple CP distance I read so far.

Yeap, you're right. I tested a SPW antenna on the 10km flight. I was boring while Costi_n was struggling against the wind and I made a few tests with another RX and a SPW antenna. In watched the signal until the plane was 3600m. I couldn't believe that I had usable image that far. After this distance I gave up testing and I focused on the 10 km target.

Originally Posted by alek3d

Hi, would you mind giving some advises to a newbie in FPV? I just bought 200 mW system from Foxtechfpv with stock antennas. I also bought 11 dBi panel patch antenna for RC305.!

hehe, I bought that very patch antenna once. It was Ok for parkflying while I did the 'human antenna tracking' with it attached to my backpack. But still lost the plane in the ocean when the patch became disoriented from the plane. I was always showered in multipath interference with 5.8GHz and those linear antennas.

As the experts have said above: Definitely you want circular polarized antennas. Make em or buy em. The build threads are all over this forum - probably want a cloverleaf shape for the plane and skew planar shape for the receiver, but there are other options that are also good. Buy them ready made from www.ReadyMadeRC.com or www.TrueRC.net . When I bought mine (TrueRC), it transformed the video experience immeasurably.

Amazing job Future breeze! Glad I set myself up with a similar diversity - a 7 turn helical for longer range. Not sure how well tuned I am, however.

Yes, with the circular polarized everything is different. Even the static noise over the image has a circular motion pattern

Originally Posted by RENATOA

You forgot to tell about the 3600meters using CL - SPW
Not sure if this combo distances are recorded somewhere, and we have no proof of this distance anyway, but for me was the biggest simple CP distance I read so far.

I flew out to 6km using a CL and SPW last summer. Posted a thread about it.

Markus

Originally Posted by markus123456

1)
It's not like this. You are just interpreting the switches the wrong way, most likely on the receiver.

If you put the rx flat in front of you such that you can read the text "channel" normally, then a switch that is in the DOWN position is logically "on". Switch number 4 is not connected on both the rx and tx. They form a locical binary pattern where the switch number (numbered as 1 to 4 from the left) represent the binary weight. Alas if all switches are up (binary zero) this equals to channel 1, if the #1 is down, this is channel 2. If i.e. 1 and 3 are down this is binary 5, alas channel 6 etc. etc.

2) You need circular polarized antennas. Forget the patch you have and the linear antennas. Started the exactly same way long ago and switched to CP antennas. If they are well made, you can reach ~3km omnidirectional.

3) No, it's NOT omnidirectional. Gain and directivity mean basically the same as there is no real "gain", it's directivity and as the term defines means it is NOT omnidirectional. The flat side has to look towards the plane but again, dump that antenna and go for a skew planar wheel on the receiver and a cloverleaf on the transmitter.

HTH

Markus

Thanks a lot! I think I've read you are also selling custom made antennas. Can you give me a link to your shop or send me PM so we can get a deal? I am also from Europe so I think this is the best for me.

Actually, regarding the channel selection, it looks to me that switch is off when it's down. See image.

Originally Posted by markus123456

I flew out to 6km using a CL and SPW last summer. Posted a thread about it.

Markus

Sorry, was sure your thread was about a 4 turn helix
Well, we have another target then

Originally Posted by alek3d

Actually, regarding the channel selection, it looks to me that switch is off when it's down. See image.

If you look at your image, on the left side of the switch, it's marked ON and a little arrow pointing down

Like this
O
N

Nigel.

Originally Posted by Devonboy

If you look at your image, on the left side of the switch, it's marked ON and a little arrow pointing down

Like this
O
N

Nigel.

lol I thought "O" is zero, so means off. "N" below did not know what it means, just like "KE" on the right side. I thought those are some type codes or something...

Nevermind...

Nigel

:d :d :d

Simply suprising swr meter