This article walks through some FPV video issues our drone racing group has been dealing with and how we went about troubleshooting and testing in order to resolve the issues.

Band/Channel Separation

• A band channels are separated by 20 Mhz
• B band channels are separated by 19 Mhz
• E band channels are separated by 20 Mhz and are split in half, where the second half starts 180 Mhz after the last E channel in the first half
• F band channels are separated by 20 Mhz
• R band channels are separated by 37 Mhz

Illegal Bands/Channels
Since legal frequencies are found between, and including 5650 to 5925, the following bands are found to be illegal in the US.

• E4 (5645)
• E8 (5945)

This leaves R1 as the first legal frequency and E7 as the last legal frequency in the US.

VTX Signal Analysis
Initially, when we had poor video (most often times with three or more pilots), we ran three spectrum analyzers, two from the FuriousFPV True-D V3 Fatshark modules, and one from the ImmersionRC RapidFire Fatshark module. All three were showing the same graph that indicated that every channel had a dominant peak, followed by a smaller peak that was always five raceband channels away from the dominant peak, or roughly 185 Mhz. Given this theory, if a Pilot 1 is flying on Raceband 1, and Pilot 2 is flying on Raceband 6, Pilot 2 could see some video artifacts from the rogue spike from Pilot 1's VTX on Raceband 1. The attached image shows the primary spike on Raceband 1 and the rogue spike on Raceband...Continue Reading

Many Flight Controllers allow the ability to see the current (measured in milliamp hours or mAh) and voltage (V) from our goggles and headsets via on-screen-display (OSD).

Often times, the calibration is incorrect, leaving us believing that we have consumed the current that we are reading. In reality, we may have consumed more or less than what is being displayed.

The result in less flight time, or worse, too much flight time where the battery is drained to the point where it starts to chemically break down and become less consistent.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

Other guides can be found at http://www.gbdrl.com/.

I've been sitting on this one for quite a while, but I finally put it together in a document and posted it. Follow the link below to view my guide that explains the C rate and how it is used in calculations for charging, and discharging batteries.

http://www.gbdrl.com/article/c-rate-explained/

Does the latest FrSky R-XSR firmware break SBUS? I found this to be true as I was troubleshooting why my brand new R-XSR that was flashed to the latest firmware (3/8/2018) was not working. I replaced it with another brand new R-XSR that was not flashed to the latest firmware and SBUS worked flawlessly. I later found that a friend of mine had the same issue. He put together this alert for anyone who is having issues with their R-XSR and SBUS. Comment if you have had the same issue.

http://www.gbdrl.com/heads-up/frsky-r-xsr-heads-up/

Update
It looks like FrSky has removed the firmware update, from 3/8/2018, for the R-XSR and added a new update on 3/21/2018. However, after testing the 3/21/2018 firmware update, it seems that SBUS is still not working correctly.

My guide to using Team BlackSheep (TBS) PitMode is the second guide that I wrote. Writing this guide, and testing out the procedures for using PitMode really opened my eyes in regards to how great PitMode is and how it can/should be used when a group of pilots get together to fly.

The guide is linked below.

http://www.gbdrl.com/article/using-tbs-pitmode/

I've been writing some guides, putting some pieces of information together so all information that is needed to complete a particular task is in one spot, with no videos to navigate through. My first guide discusses how to flash FrSky recievers with your FrSky Taranis transmitter. A link to the guide follows.

http://www.gbdrl.com/article/flashing-frsky-receivers/