Received my new GoPro 3 Black editions on Friday and spent most of the weekend playing with all the settings and learning the new menus. The iPhone App is awesome. You basically can change and view all the available settings of your camera through your iPhone or iPad without touching the camera.
Unfortunately in my rush to get outside for a few minutes to test some aerial footage and view from iPhone, I forgot that the GoPro transmits via 2.4 just like my Aurora 9 radio. The video shows what happens next...
Comments
Vince, the Wi-Fi can be disabled on the GoPro cameras so no worries there. Also this isn't specific to one radio, any radio in the 2.4 GHz spectrum (which is basically all of them) are susceptible to the same kind of interference.
Despite my previous comment, some radios can overcome the Wi-Fi conflicts (or any 2.4 GHz conflicts for that matter, even higher power FPV transmitters). In particular the Hitec Aurora 9 when using the scan mode which can intentionally avoid occupied channels. This video demonstrates it very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f43mydRdjA
The disadvantage of the scan mode is if you lose connection during the flight (my understanding is) it won't reconnect until both the transmitter and receiver are powered off and back on again. Either way the delay on the GoPro makes it impractical for FPV use so what's the point. It was probably intended for folks who just want to check the framing of a shot in hard to reach places like under a car or high up.
Hi Graham. I have am Aurora 9 and a gopro 3 on order – o dear.
I know the Aurora has an alternative TX mode, claimed to be better when the 2.4g band gets busy but I don’t think I will be experimenting with the wifi turned on.
Ground based range checks are not proof against freq conflicts.
Once you are in the air, the signal strength obviously becomes lower, and this is when any possible same-band conflicts show up... usually too late.
Also, spread-spectrum freq hopping technologies do not protect against broad spectrum transmitters which flood the whole band.
I've also discovered to my detriment that the Aurora 9's signal is not nearly as robust as one is led to believe. I feel that they really could've done better and made it a little more bullet-proof, I flew behind some damp trees and my FPV plane became a lawn dart, was a weird feeling to crash hard while viewing from the plane's perspective.
Another problem was my quad attempting to fly off by completely by itself in a very remore place with my phone attached (see my blog post)
All were using the Aurora 9 Tx and Optima 7 Rx
When I saw the title of this I was thinking... "Nooo! That's a terrible idea because they're on the same frequency!" Looks like you've covered that pretty well already.
Yeah keep us posted. I was looking at a tx/rx cause I heard the gopro had HDMI or Component out. You did answer a question I had. I wasn't sure you could use the video out and record at the same time.
Thanks
The wifi won't stream recording video above 1080p and it is lagged a bit. You can view live but not while recording. 1080 and below you can view both live and recording. I drove around a bit with it inside the car looking out and the lag seemed to be 3-5 seconds in most cases. I'll mainly be using the viewing options for set-up in my full size aircraft. Plus battery life seems to go pretty fast with all the options on.
Whew close one! How is the video on the iPhone/iPad? is it live streaming or is it lagged? Picking up mine tomorrow, was just curious if FPV was an option at all.
Thanks
Adam