ORIGINAL: dzbum
Did you fire this unit up before you hacked it and do a ground range check?
No reason to. If it doesn't provide good range I'm not planning on selling it anyway. I'm mainly stripping it down here and there for something to do in between work on my AP plane that is mainly going to carry an Aiptek 5100M pocket camcorder. In no big rush to get this TX into the air with a CCD camera, but later I will.
I doubt it doesn't get good range based on some of these remarks. Quote from Randall (He was using the same ebay cheapie but the 1.5 watt version)...
"I have their 1.5 watt version and if you take it out of the case and substitute servo leads for the rca plugs it's very light. My setup will give video as far as I dare to fly. Especially with the GP Patch antenna I made for for my receiver. "
And another...
"Those antennas actually work VERY well. That little circuit at the bottom of the antenna is a base load. Mine does really well with the stock antennas. I sent photos to Bill Strong a while back asking if I could use better antennas and he told me that the ones that came with it were high gain. They look funky but they work a long long ways out. "
And, if you dig back in this thread you'll see some ground range tests of the unit with good results.
But, was a little too drunk last night working in bad lighting and cut a little too far at two points on the board's ground trace. Had to add a couple tiny wires to the board to fix that. Nipped the transistor trace near the bottom of the board and am not sure if I might have shorted it to ground. If you look in the picture you'll see the arrows pointing to what I'm talking about. I'm getting a ground signal from the bottom pin and the next one up. Anybody know if you are supposed to?
Don't drink and dremel!
