433 Mhz antennas for 3Dr radios

Please guys i need some help. I got a pair of 433 MHz telemetry modules from RCTimer, but the antennas just don't perform. And i want to buy some new ones. I am thinking in buying one of this dipole for the Ground Starion and one of this to use in the Quad. Is this the best configuration? Please help me soon.

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  • For those of us heathens that don't want to (or can't!) get our head around antenna design, does anyone know anywhere that you can just buy optimised antennas for 433 radios?

  • Just wondering how mobile phones get such great range with such tiny antennas. For example mobile wifi in the usb form are incredibly small and yet they manage good range on 900mhz. Why doesnt anyone make similar style antennas using the same geometry ? Why are all rc antennas so large ?

  • DIY pair of 433Mhz half-wave dipoles completed and ready for testing (created based on info found in this thread over at fpvlabs).

    3701724775?profile=original

    • Got a chance to fly with this new antenna setup.

      I flew with new dipoles on both ends (with droid planner/nexus 7 ground station) and checked signal strength at height of approximately 50m height and distance of about 200m. With second flight I switched back to the standard 2.4Ghz whip on the ground station (with the dipole remaining on the drone).

      Signal with dipoles on both ends - 96%
      Signal with dipole on drone and standard whip on the ground station - 27%

      3701725356?profile=original

  • Hi Guys,

    I have been using the RCTimer Telemetry radios with the supplied 2.4Ghz whips.

    While the drone is still on the ground I need only move away about 10-metres before loosing signal.  Having said that range does improve significantly once i am in the air.

    A while back I purchase a selection of antennas from ebay.  I have opened each and pictured below.  These are supposed to be as follows (from top to bottom)

    1. 433Mhz

    2. 900Mhz

    3. 2.4Ghz

    3701720670?profile=originalI am yet to get my head properly around antenna element design, and am hoping that someone here might possibly be able to confirm for me whether these are actually designed for the frequencies listed.

    Thanks in advance guys.

    • The first one looks like a 433mhz antena, the last looks like a 900mhz but the middle one doesn't look nothing to me, the dipole sleeve ins't even in the correct place

      • Thank you David.
  • Hey! You can make yourself some pretty good antennas very easy. I have a half wave dipole on the outer wing on my twinstar 2 and a regular half wave antenna on the ground. They are made with regular single servo wire. The half wave antenna is just 32.94cm wire soldered to a RP-SMA connector in a plastic pipe like the one used on RC cars.

    Dipole: http://www.mictronics.de/2012/01/433mhz-half-wave-dipole-for-lrs/

    I was flying 1400m out and 250m up yesterday and had a RSSI around 90. The RSSI did not seem to be that affected of the distance. If you are flying a multicopter you can make quarter wave dipole that is half the size instead.

    3692815036?profile=original

  • Hi,

    No wonder they don't, they are 2.4 GHz antennas!

    You can use those you found all right. Or you just cut yourself 4 16.5cm pieces of wire and connect 1 piece to the inner conductor of each antenna connector and 1 piece to each outer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dipole_antenna_m_en.svg  (where their length formula is slightly incorrect, they forgot the shortening factor). It will work just as well. Better yet is a Yagi or a biquad at least on the ground.

    Regards

    Soren

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