600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

I thought about calling the thread “The worlds most boring video!”.
Because that’s what it will be to most people, but I learned a lot today and thought I would share.

[link=http://elwood.pionet.net/~jjoy/BlackWidow600mW.wmv]Right click and save as, "The worlds most boring video" 3.5 megs[/link]

I know Bill hates it when I do this stuff instead of flying, but it was 35+mph winds today, so there!:D

I installed a 600mW BlackWidow system in my Video Stick and decided to take the windy day to test a few antennas with the receiver. I just wanted to get a rough idea of the maximum safe range and see if one antenna preformed better than the other.

I was surprised by the results, and no I didn’t have a very good test location.
I just put the transmitter with the stock dipole antenna on the roof of my parent’s motor home by our shop and headed for the hills 6+ miles away with the receiver.
As you can see by the inverted video feed, the signal was going just over top of two trailers and bouncing off of several metal buildings. But this was the best I could do today.

Anyway, the Proxim 14dBi yagi impressed me! Best quality with all the ground clutter and the best range, The biggest surprise was, it’s suppose to be 31-degree H & V but held the signal to over 60 degrees at 6+ miles.
[link=http://www.winncom.com/moreinfo/item/848-274-221%20%20%20%20/index.html]PROXIM 2.4GHz WLAN Antenna[/link]

The 90x10 degree 12dBi Sector antenna I used before was second best, but showed it’s narrow 10-degree vertical pattern
[link=http://www.cushcraft.com/support/pdf/S2401290P.pdf]Cushcraft S2401290P PDF[/link]

The Goof Proof Patch was 3’rd, nice pattern but only an intermittent signal at 6 miles.
[link=http://www.rc-cam.com/gp_patch.htm]Goof-Proof Patch[/link]

I bought a 5.5 dBi omni for the transmitter on the other plane and I tried it on the receiver also.
I’m concerned with the pattern, it’s suppose to be 50-degrees on the V plane but tested out more like 10 degrees. I don’t think it’s going to make a very good TX antenna because of this.
[link=http://www.rangeextender.com/5ruduan.html]5.5dBi Rubber Duck Antenna with SMA Connector[/link]

The 15dBi Panel antenna (I thought would win) works great on my wireless network but was a total bust connected to the video receiver! Even at 3 miles all it would pick up was either sideband interference from a TV station or another video sender (I couldn’t tell what it was receiving). You can see the TV footage it homed in on in the video, I’m curious what caused it.
[link=http://www.wirelessconnections.net/downloads/techlit/Ant-UNI-DIR%2016%20Specs.pdf]UNI-16[/link]

Anyway, I’m glad it was windy today! I learned what antennas NOT to use and the yagi really impressed me.

If the wind stops tomorrow, I’ll try them out in the air.

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

i dont get it...

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

The Yagi is definitely the winner. Where did you get it from? Forgive me if I have asked this before, but my CRS is flairing up again...:D

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

Tell me about it!
It was late last night; I should have done the post today.;)

I edited the original post and added links for all the antennas.
I’ve had the yagi for years but had never tried it because I didn’t think it would have a wide enough pattern. After seeing how well it did at long range and how wide the usable pattern is I’m going to give it a try in the air.

The main thing I wanted to see was, if the BlackWidow system would quickly recover from a loss of signal. And how well the different antennas matched the signal.
Recovery from a signal loss at 6-miles was instant when the receiver antenna moved back into its usable pattern, and that’s very good news.

Overall, I’ll probably use the GPP or one of Bills circular antennas (like you have) for close in normal flying and the yagi if I fly beyond visual to look at something. It’s nice to know I have a grainy but stable signal at 6 times the range I need!

I’d still like to try one of those MP Bullet antennas on the TX, but their shipping is almost as much as the antenna and I was outbid on the only one I found on ebay.[:'(]

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

Wind, Shmind! ;)

Your tests were very interesting. I suspect some of the variation you got was caused by each antenna having a slightly different center frequency. A different channel on the tx might have yielded slightly different results.

Regarding the 5.5dbi whip, I think the narrower-than-published results you got were due to to the fact that as you tilted the antenna over, you were also changing polarization which can easily steal 20dbi.

I just picked up a couple 12dbi yagi's similar to the Proxim unit you were happy with. Now I'm really stoked to try them out!

Check out Giorgio's website, he did some range testing of the 600mw transmitter straight up :D :

http://www.noskylimit.50megs.com

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

I saw that, very impressive!:D With a patch antenna pointing down and a yagi pointing up they should have a signal at 9+ miles AGL.

I flew my 600mW system for the first time late this afternoon, and I have some things to work on I guess.
I’m not sure if my aluminum exhaust diverter is causing the problems or something else. But I had blocks and lines even before the engine was started. Kind of like when a head gets dirty on a DV camcorder.
If I touched the side of the TX case it cleared up somewhat.
I decided to go ahead and do a flight anyway but it was less than impressive, the video was starting to get grainy at 1/4 mile, and even the yagi picked up a TV station when I got to about 1200-1500 ft agl.
I just kept it in visual for this flight test.

[link=http://elwood.pionet.net/~jjoy/BW600mW-Flight_Test.wmv]BW600mW-Flight_Test.wmv (10 megs) - Right click and save as[/link]

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

How weird is that?

Where you flying in the same place you did the original tests?

Bill

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

It was a different location, I was flying outside of the town I live in this time. It’s been a pretty clean area RF wise.
I tried the other receiver channels with the TX turned off (the interference does not go away) and found the problem to be TV channel 14. Their transmission tower is over 35 miles away, but I see they have something on the map about 30 miles west of my location.
I’m not familiar with TV technology but looking at the strange radiation pattern on the map, could it be a repeater or something?
The test video was with the receiver antenna pointing to the east, and away from any of their towers. 470MHz is a long way from 2.4GHz, this would have to be the 5th sideband?

I have no idea at this point, and I’m sure open to ideas.
Bummer![:o]

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

My Bad!
You know what, I think I’ll do the flight test over because there was one source of interference I didn’t even think about.
My antenna aimer was a police officer, fully loaded with all the little RF producing gizmos they carry and his patrol car was 10 feet away….
Hummmm, I wonder…?:D

RE: 600mW Black Widow, 6+ mile test
 

I have two 2.4 ghz cameras mounted on my house, and when the local police drive by responding to yet another false alarm at the neighbor's house, I definately get a beating interference in the signal. Just my two cents, which, with inflation, isn't worth anything!

Ensignnolo