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Any crossfire experts in here?

Wrecked

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Im toying around with crossfire on my "cinematic" quad, but when I range tested it, I got a failsafe only 700 meters out. Is this to be expected, or should I get better range?

I have the crossfire micro module, and a nano receiver in the quad. The antennas are mounted horizontally. On the quad its on an arm.
It was on 250mW and newest firmware.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Could you be on the wrong frequency? Are you on 915MHz?
Got a picture of your antenna mounted on the quad?
Are you sure the antenna didn't disconnect from the U.fl on the nano?
700 meters is about 2/5 of a mile, for distance, horizontal is not the preferred way to go due to reduced range.
 
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There are so many factors affecting our signals, but we can't tell they are there without expensive test equipment, and the knowledge to use it. I am not sure where you are in the world that you can go out .435 miles (almost half a mile) while you are flying a quad like this, and most of the time you would run out of 5.8GHz video signal long before without a ground station and some real nice antennas, which is just one of the ways "long range" fliers "get out there" like they do. Land and trees and other things degrade the 900MHz signal Crossfire uses just like any other radio wave, but at 900MHz it is much better than say a 2.4GHz control link, but still it can't go through land or a thick forest very well. If you are setup for and watching your LQ from your Crossfire then you can tell if it is a signal issue causing your failsafe, until then it is simply a guess. Vertical mount of both the TX and RX antennas can pose issues with mounting and antennas hitting the ground etc., but will give the best range for a given area and the noise in that area. I have more questions than answers about what really happened to your control link causing you to fall from the air. Good luck and let me know if I can help.
 
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I do have LQ in my OSD, but it just pretty much drops from around 90 to failsafe in seconds before I can react, and turn around. It has happend for me both times I tried to reach 1 km. All looks fine until suddently it just falls out of the air. In my DVR I can se the LQ drops fast when it happens. One of the times was on a beach with no interference whatsoever, and clear line of sight.
 
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I do have LQ in my OSD, but it just pretty much drops from around 90 to failsafe in seconds before I can react, and turn around. It has happend for me both times I tried to reach 1 km. All looks fine until suddently it just falls out of the air. In my DVR I can se the LQ drops fast when it happens. One of the times was on a beach with no interference whatsoever, and clear line of sight.
Yeah, I don't know any long range people running horizontal mounting whether it be on the arm or in a specialized mount often on the GoPro mount, you are almost looking at the null ends of the antenna both going out and coming back. As far as I know the advertised 250mw is actually about 200mw unless you have done the hardware mod on that MicroTX, still at 900MHz that should be plenty, but I think your antenna mounting is no good for distance. I would suggest an experiment with vertical mounting and if you can't reach a whole lot further that way, I would open a ticket with TBS and see what Mike Chin or Wayne Ho think about the performance.
 
Also, just as a reminder, the only place you have "no interference" is likely only in a place with no cell phone signal, since cell towers put out a bunch of power in the 900MHz range since that is the frequency band they use.
 
Well, in that case I guess there was interference then, but I was the only drone pilot on the beach, and there was like a mile to the nearest building.

I'm going to try vertical mounting on both the quad and transmitter. Just need some 3D prints..
 

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