Wireless RF Transceiver 431-470MHz - Good Enough for Learning? - Blogs

Other than "you get what you paid for" Anyone have a reason Not to buy this pair?

My personal goal would be to use it as a learning tool, prepairing for adding telemetry to my projects. But it should be usefull too. Secondary use in some project around the house, ie halloween automation, laser guided water splasher (anti-cat crap in the yard device currently in planning stage) ect.

Here's the Junk:

This package consists of two mini half-duplex wireless data transceiver modules and each such module is highly integrated with an ultra speed MCU and a powerful RF chip. With the introduction of the innovative yet higly-efficient encoding method, its anti-interference ability and sensitivity are significantly improved. Features like various channel options, ultra long transmission distance (1000 meters) or abundant interfaces (UART/TTL, RS-485 & RS-232) helps make the transmission of data of any size possible and eliminate the needs of writing transmission program and running complicated settings. A software application ("RF-Magic") is offered for free so that users can modify the settings of the module. Besides, its slim size and wide power supply range makes itself the most popular selection of many applications in different fields.

Features:

Ultra long transmission distance: 800-1000 meters @1200bps
Working frequency: 431-478Mhz (1KHz step)
+3.3-5.5V wide power supply range
-112dBm(9600bps) high sensitivity
Over 100 channels
GFSK modulation
Highly efficient cyclic interleaving error correction encoding
Flexible software programme option settings
Selectable RFID index
UART/TTL, RS-485 & RS-232
Large data buffer: 512bytes
Suitable for massive data transfer
Built-in watchdog ensures long-term operation
Length of antenna: 104.32mm

Product Link:

Can't comment on the quality, or the support. However I should point out this operates in the 70cm band (420-470MHz), which requires a HAM radio operators license to operate legally. See the chart here for frequencies requiring a License to operate. Something in the 900MHz, 2.4GHz or the 5.8 GHz (if in the USA) would be better choices, with the 900MHz giving the best range/watt of input power. If your using a 2.4GHz transmitter stay away from the 2.4GHz units, and if your using a 900MHz x-Bee or similar system, stay away from the 900MHz systems. I have also read some reports of signifigantly reduced rangeon 2.4GHz RC transmitters when a 900MHz system has been placed too close to the 2.4GHz receiver, so be carefull to test your range if this is the way you go!

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Comments

bGatti April 8, 2011 at 10:25am

@Nathaniel

433Mhz is common as dirt and does not (so far as I know) require anything to operate - if it did, every second garage door in the US would be pirate radio.
Paul April 8, 2011 at 8:26am

I've been using these to control an rc car from my pc I've not encountered any problems with them so far.
Moderator

John Church April 8, 2011 at 7:47am

A comment I posted earlier in regards to this modem pair:

Hey, just a tip for anyone using the APC220 modules; the ENable pin on the PC side should NOT be connected (should be left floating) to the supplied USB/TTL converter. Either make an adapter that ignores this pin or snap the pin off in order to be successful at streaming data. The modules are nice, but this small mod must be done for the PC side to work properly.
Moderator

Nathaniel Caner April 8, 2011 at 5:56am

Can't comment on the quality, or the support. However I should point out this operates in the 70cm band (420-470MHz), which requires a HAM radio operators license to operate legally. See the chart here for frequencies requiring a License to operate. Something in the 900MHz, 2.4GHz or the 5.8 GHz (if in the USA) would be better choices, with the 900MHz giving the best range/watt of input power. If your using a 2.4GHz transmitter stay away from the 2.4GHz units, and if your using a 900MHz x-Bee or similar system, stay away from the 900MHz systems. I have also read some reports of signifigantly reduced rangeon 2.4GHz RC transmitters when a 900MHz system has been placed too close to the 2.4GHz receiver, so be carefull to test your range if this is the way you go!
Alex McEwan April 8, 2011 at 3:44am

I am using the APC220 (these are APC200) which work with the APM and a GCS for bringing back info all working ok. but I cant get it to send data back to the APM with the Mavlink. I havent fully tested range yet so cant comment on that.
Nicholas Winkel April 8, 2011 at 1:44am

That's to bad, I hope someone posts that got them to work, you can't beat the price...
Marco Glattfelder April 8, 2011 at 12:59am

It's bad, bad crap. I have these and I never get them work. Reading forums posts it seems that a lot others were not able to use it either. And no support at all from sure electronics! They don't even tried to help me and wanted to sell me some other stuff instead.

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