I have been experiencing poor range with my 3DR telemetry radios that came with my Iris. I don’t get more than 40-50 m range before a full loss of connection. I have reviewed my Tlog, and see the GS noise is higher than the iris noise levels. I don’t know what are acceptable/common noise values. The GS is set about 1m above the ground, and it is as far away as possible from my laptop. The radios are both set to max power. I have read that some folks have had problems with their the 433 radios because of mis-matched antenna, and others suspect that their problems are do to interference with the USB on their laptop. I don’t have another computer to test the USB interference, so I will try to test with an old hub or find a way to set my macbook to use USB 1.1 as suggested here: diydrones.com/forum/topics/only- … 1#comments
If anyone can decipher the logs to fix the problem, or has a recommendation on how to get good antennas for these radios, it would be much appreciated!
Try reducing the power a little bit. When I set my radios to max power, I also had very bad range. Reducing the power by a few steps helped in my case.
What’s your settings otherwise? Channel range, transfer rate, etc.?
Do you have the possibility to do a spectrum check of the frequency range you use in your area? Maybe there’s some Chinese babyphone or something like that blanketing the band.
Thanks Stefan. I had the same poor range problem with the default setting of tx power at 12. I have since put it to 20, opened the max/min frequency range and put the number of channels to 50 as my 1st trouble shoot step. This is how it was setup in the previously attached tlog. I have not yet tried lowering the xfer rate from default values, but can give it a shot. I don’t have a spectrum analyser, but I have flown at a couple places maybe 5-6 km apart, so if it’s a noise problem it’s probably in my setup.
Hmja - trouble is, most RF problems can only be diagnosed with professional equipment…
If you get yourself a $5 - $10 RTL 2838 DVB-T module, you can diagnose a lot of issues.
For windows there’s SDR# (SDR-Sharp) and for Linux gqrx. They have spectrum displays (limited bandwidth, though) and you can tell if one of the modules is maybe not transmitting as strong as it should be.
You can also get for 99$ a rf explorer device (www.rf-explorer.com). They come with different bandwitdh modules and are great to analyze the rf spektrum.
For 433Mhz, you can get the base version that monitors from 260Mhz to 960Mhz or something like that.
Another main cause for poor range are antennas. Are you sure you are using the blue dot antennas ? (red dot are made for 900Mhz). You could also try to make yourself a simple pair of dipoles.
I get at least 1 km of range with my 3DR 433Mhz module (in the middle of nowhere where they are no interferences) on the stock duck antennas (I experienced this range with a fly away where the drone flew until battery emptied itself, triggering a failsafe landing ->still had telemetry on the laptop going at about 1km away and behind trees - a forest actually. I am know sure a few peasants have reported UFOs in the area lol).
Hugues-
Yes the antennas that came with the radios from 3dr had blue dots. I was wondering if the dot was an indication of the freq- thanks for confirming that. I’m planning on a putting an opto-isolator or an BLE radio to relay the 3dr GS radio data, which should in theory eliminate the any noise from the connection to the laptop USB port. I will also try building a dipole. Do the noise values for either the remote or GS seem unusual?
I have thought about getting an RF explorer for a while- and this may be the excuse to justify it…
Hi! I am using a 433Mhz radio for a few weeks now without any problem but suddenly the last two days I have huge signal problems!
I can’t go even 1m apart from the two modules and I am having 0% on the signal! What is going one? I haven’t change anything or the firmware side and I tried to upload again the telemetry firmware on the two 433Mhz module. But still nothing! I haven’t even change anything on the hardware side… I am still flying with the same setup
The antennas are looking good! If I have the two antennas no more than 1m apart then I am having full functionality but after this distance the signal goes immediately to 10 - 20% and then to 0% if I move one antenna a little bit further…
Same problem with range on my 433.
I ran the 3DR radio test app and the link kept falling with a 1m range.
My Y6 had a very heavy landing (rotors went to idle power when RTL with low battery) which still needs some parts, but funnily enough it’s the ground radio with the problem.
If I press up on the antenna base it starts working again. Resoldering the antenna connector helped for a bit, but it looks like the problem is really in the shielded RF module and its connection to the board, as pressing on the connector is flexing the board slightly.
So it looks like a duff board as I can’t see any easy way of fixing the RF module connections.