When I ordered my 2014 Y6 (fully assembled) I purchased the full OSD/FPV kit and FPV monitor from 3D Robotics. To avoid any issues.
Have it set up where I am using the "dual" receiver on the Monitor, not the receiver that came with the kit.
Well, to put it nicely, my FPV stinks. Start getting a pretty broken signal at <100 feet. So I decide to upgrade the antenna's, opting for Immersion RC. Reading all, or lots, of the RP-SMA v. SMA posts, I carefully research that 3DR uses RP-SMA on their kit. Get the antenna's and it may actually be worse.
So today I am re-reading the Monitor User Guide and the specs clearly list it has having 2 SMA antenna's.
I am not expert, but I do believe that SMA & RP-SMA are not compatable.
So I 3D Robotics actually selling and FPV Monitor, with their name on it, that is not compatible with their FPV kit?
Thanks.
Replies
sma and rp-sma just refer to the direction of the connector threading compared to the pin/hole in the connector. You can get adapters between them. I got the 3DR Video Kit and a few sma-to-rpsma adapters from Amazon to connect ImmersionRC antennas and it works just fine.
However: I get FPV static in my basement from just 20-30 feet. Why? Because my WiFi router produces interference in the 5.8Ghz range. I get tons of range if I go out of town... if you're in an urban area around houses, there will be a lot of interference in the 5.8Ghz range and you'll probably see a lot of static in your FPV feed. Heck, I get static from a 600mw transmitter in my house.
Take your setup out of town, away from any houses, and see if you still have any range issues. If so, you have a hardware problem. If not, you just have urban interference in/near your house.
Sma male has thread on inside with a center pin. Sma female has thread on outside with no center pin. They fit together.
Rp-sma male has thread on inside with no center pin. While the rp-sma female has threads on outside with a center pin.
You can always get some RP-SMA female to SMA male adapters if you want to use antennas with an SMA female connector with the transmitter 3DR sells. There would not be any way to fit such an antenna otherwise as the males (and obviously females) are different sizes. Compare your video transmitter antenna to the telemetry antenna if you're using the 3DR modules, as an example of RP-SMA vs SMA. The adapters in the 3d Robotics store look a bit pricey to me but maybe that just means they just don't carry a huge quantity in stock.
just make sure that one part of the antenna either the female or male has a pin. If they both have a pin then clearly they wont screw into eachother if there both just slots then there will be no contact. I dont own your products but if you take some pictures I can tell you.
The wiki has an explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMA_connector
RP just means it's a SMA connector with a reverse polarity center conductor, the outside is basically the same between the two. Make sure to look at the inside of the connectors you have to verify that the center wire is only on one side. If you have 2 center wires (or none) things could have been damaged.
Set the monitors receivers band to "E" though it's setup menu, and verify the channel settings on the transmitter, the sticker is on the silver receiver for the dip switch settings. The default is channel 8.