Yep. It's an interesting gizmo. You put a transmitter on your plane, and then use a direction finder.

http://www.com-spec.com/rcplane/index.html

It may work for finding your downed plane, but it's not really an elegant solution. A GPS transponder would be better.

Originally Posted by Wind_of_Change

Yep. It's an interesting gizmo. You put a transmitter on your plane, and then use a direction finder.

http://www.com-spec.com/rcplane/index.html

It may work for finding your downed plane, but it's not really an elegant solution. A GPS transponder would be better.

Yikes! That is spendy. Looks like something out of a Star Trek episode. Here is another option that I found: http://www.walstonretrieval.com/main.htm
It's even more expensive, but claims 20~90 mi range from air (9 mi ground)

For lost aircraft beacon I've been leaning towards this http://fmtv.us/rf_beacon.html its $50.00 dollars weights 2grams can be connected to a 1S lipo Here is a thread on it http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1274173

Mike K.

I've used this one for rockets.

http://www.bigredbee.com/BeeLine.htm

With a yagi antenna and basic receiver, I can track it from quite some distance. It can work over the whole 70cm band, which is nice. They have GPS capable units as well...

Originally Posted by smileyz

For lost aircraft beacon I've been leaning towards this http://fmtv.us/rf_beacon.html its $50.00 dollars weights 2grams can be connected to a 1S lipo Here is a thread on it http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1274173

Mike K.

I have this one.

You can set it to a FRS frequency, and set it to delay activation.

Then with a little practice you can walk to the transmitter.

If you hold the FRS radio against your body, then you get static when you are pointing 90deg, and 180deg from the transmitter, and no static when facing the transmitter.

when you are a distance, then you can use a yagi for super long distances, and as you get closer the three tones are three strengths, so you start to pick up more tones.

You could easily get within 100 feet of your plane, and maybe closer with very little practice.

I am using a 1S LiPo that I pulled out of a keychain cam.

I haven't gotten significant enough range on my quad copter to need a beacon. I did lose it behind a hill once in Snow Canyon, and it went into fail-safe descent and landed safely in a bush. I have an audible beeper on it, which is enough to locate it.

A plane on the other hand could end up miles away. With a beeper, you have to get to within maybe 500 feet to hear it, which is difficult to do from that distance, especially if you don't have any ground station footage of the landing site. That being said, the beeper on my wing has helped me locate it in a few crashes and made recovery much quicker.

Mike B, I'd be interested in seeing your setup. Next time I'm up your way, maybe you can demonstrate it to me. I'll be driving through there next weekend, maybe we can hook up for some quad flying fun. Let me know if that interests you.

Originally Posted by Wind_of_Change

I haven't gotten significant enough range on my quad copter to need a beacon. I did lose it behind a hill once in Snow Canyon, and it went into fail-safe descent and landed safely in a bush. I have an audible beeper on it, which is enough to locate it.

A plane on the other hand could end up miles away. With a beeper, you have to get to within maybe 500 feet to hear it, which is difficult to do from that distance, especially if you don't have any ground station footage of the landing site. That being said, the beeper on my wing has helped me locate it in a few crashes and made recovery much quicker.

Mike B, I'd be interested in seeing your setup. Next time I'm up your way, maybe you can demonstrate it to me. I'll be driving through there next weekend, maybe we can hook up for some quad flying fun. Let me know if that interests you.

I'd like to get together and fly again.

I'm uploading a video that I compiled of the last two days. What a rush this Hex has been...

Multi-rotors are really fun to fly, but I don't like the video I'm getting from them as much as the video from my recently deceased wing (RIP). It's just not as interesting as the big scenic stuff... at least not from a viewers perspective.

But dang they're fun to just go out and navigate around obstacles. I've had a few pretty close calls, chopping branches & leaves, bouncing off rocks, missing holes in rocks I was aiming for, etc. Haha, really fun. But the crashes suck. I ordered a new quad, the TBS Discovery, so I can have a frame that's easier to maintain, is more compact, and designed for action flying. I'm hoping I'll be able to get better footage with it. I did a three mile hike into a big waterfall on the back of Timp hoping to get some cool footage, but the wind picked up and started gusting hard. Plus there were like 100 people at the falls on Memorial Day, so it was too crowded to get any cool nature shots.

I'm going back on a quiet calm day though.

My new antennas showed up, and wow are they pretty. I got a nice helical and 3 Skew Planar Wheels for the new planes & quads. Finally getting my antenna tracker set up, now that my Deep Reaper is finally dead. I told myself I'd wait until I built a new plane, and it took longer than I expected, given how aggressively I fly.

That's what I am flying with. SPW on Vtx, and Helical. It's a great combination.

I started raising the SPW about 9" off of the airframe for best results.

Mike B,

Wow, don't accidentally flip that thing over on it's head, or that antenna is toast! haha.

I haven't seen that camera mount on the 550 before. Did you make that, or buy it somewhere?

You're still getting quite a bit of vibration in your video as well as the props being visible. Are you filming in wide or medium FOV on the GoPro?

If the video has wobbles, it's useless to me for video production. I'm crossing my fingers that the TBS will work, but I'm afraid after reading some of the reviews tonight about those arms being really bad for video. The TBS uses the flamewheel arms as well, in a spider configuration.

T

I found a gimball last night that I ordered.

The FPV and video portion of this monster were just slapped together to get it flying.

One thing is for sure, and that is that this setup will change. I'm just flying and having fun with it. the shakey picture is just part of the shotty mounts.

Multirotor FPV (7 min 23 sec)

Originally Posted by Wind_of_Change

Mike B,

Wow, don't accidentally flip that thing over on it's head, or that antenna is toast! haha.

I haven't seen that camera mount on the 550 before. Did you make that, or buy it somewhere?

You're still getting quite a bit of vibration in your video as well as the props being visible. Are you filming in wide or medium FOV on the GoPro?

If the video has wobbles, it's useless to me for video production. I'm crossing my fingers that the TBS will work, but I'm afraid after reading some of the reviews tonight about those arms being really bad for video. The TBS uses the flamewheel arms as well, in a spider configuration.

T

Originally Posted by Wind_of_Change

I haven't gotten significant enough range on my quad copter to need a beacon. I did lose it behind a hill once in Snow Canyon, and it went into fail-safe descent and landed safely in a bush. I have an audible beeper on it, which is enough to locate it.

A plane on the other hand could end up miles away. With a beeper, you have to get to within maybe 500 feet to hear it, which is difficult to do from that distance, especially if you don't have any ground station footage of the landing site. That being said, the beeper on my wing has helped me locate it in a few crashes and made recovery much quicker.

Mike B, I'd be interested in seeing your setup. Next time I'm up your way, maybe you can demonstrate it to me. I'll be driving through there next weekend, maybe we can hook up for some quad flying fun. Let me know if that interests you.

Which beeper do you use? Which one would you reccomend?

I am thinking I could note the last recorded lat/long coordinates from the OSD then plug them into a GPS or phone and get me to within earshot of a beeper, then perhaps use other beacon type methods if the plane goes down without video. Has anyone ever had to go recover a lost plane yet?

BTW... Beeson, have you guys ever recover that SW that went down earlier this year?

I'm just using these cheap discovery buzzers.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...y_Buzzer_.html

I'm putting 2 or more on each of my planes from now on. They're so cheap, and you don't know which attitude your plane will land in a crash. So I put a buzzer top & bottom and assign them to a switch. I take my radio with me when I go to find it, and flip the switch intermittently to see if I can hear it. Works like a charm if you know generally where the plane is. No reason you couldn't just add more of them to make it louder if you want.

Originally Posted by Wind_of_Change

I'm just using these cheap discovery buzzers.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...y_Buzzer_.html

I'm putting 2 or more on each of my planes from now on. They're so cheap, and you don't know which attitude your plane will land in a crash. So I put a buzzer top & bottom and assign them to a switch. I take my radio with me when I go to find it, and flip the switch intermittently to see if I can hear it. Works like a charm if you now generally where the plane is. No reason you couldn't just add more of them to make it louder if you want.

Thanks Todd, just ordered about 4 of em.
the other HK beepers I've used don't work very well. I'll give these a try.

Nope, it's still MIA

Originally Posted by seearestacey

Which beeper do you use? Which one would you reccomend?

I am thinking I could note the last recorded lat/long coordinates from the OSD then plug them into a GPS or phone and get me to within earshot of a beeper, then perhaps use other beacon type methods if the plane goes down without video. Has anyone ever had to go recover a lost plane yet?

BTW... Beeson, have you guys ever recover that SW that went down earlier this year?