Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's.......

[Bravedan 106]

 

An Autogyro!!

 

Hobby King UK sourced Durafly Auto-G2, entirely stock.

 

Biggest part of the "build" (which took an hour and a half!) was to get the Tx set up using the sprung return switch of my Taranis to run the second motor drive to spin the rotor up to help it ROG .

 

There's little room inside though, very very tight, and I'll have to get some extended lead "wire" aerials to get really good reception, as the 6CH Rx's "wedge" type aerials were jammed between motor, ESCs (2 of) and the LiPo, and I was getting indications of packet loss (no surprise there then!).

 

12-15 mph from the horse paddock top meant loads of turbulence for it to contend with, but I wasn't going to wait more time to maiden it!

 

 

 

 

[Martin 0]

I've been quite interested in that one for a while. I'll be interested to see how you get on with yours!

[Bravedan 106]

 

I swapped out the FRSky X6R Receiver "door wedge" aerials for the wire type. These are now led external and taped 90 degrees with blenderm, my usual and time proven method.

 

I decided to open up one, so cut it open down the welded seam with a knife.

 

from this:-

 

1. The actual aerial is a section of a PCB track. This is (pretty obviously) desperately thin in one plane, much wider than a wire type aerial in the other.

2. There is an abnormal extra soldered connection to the earth shielding, which ALSO goes to a double sided PCB pad, via quite a few connecting plated through holes. At certain angles this alone can shield the aerial pad line of sight!!

3. The plastic case the PCB is encapsulated inside is 1mm plus thick!!

 

In my opinion this is potentially fraught with risk, particularly in that even mounted with the long axis at 90 degrees, if both aerials have the wide section in the same plane, the line of sight signal can be edge hitting the PCB tracks on both edges.

 

I'd read reports that people had experienced poor reception with these receivers, I think I can see why!

 

I didn't like their bulkiness, now having looked in more detail, I REALLY don't like them, and will not use them again. "Wire" aerials every time for me from now on!

 

[Martin 0]

 

I wouldn't be that worried about the "edge thickness" of the antenna. The only reason wire antennae are as thick as they are is to provide mechanical strength - the difference between (say) 0.7mm diameter wire and 0.2mm thick PCB track for radio reception purposes is negligible. The PCB substrate provides the mechanical strength, and there is almost zero current to be carried.

 

It would be interesting to see if there is any effect on reception, using the range check reduced power TX mode and telemetry to see what the difference for different antenna directions.

 

I assumed that the main reason for this style with the big plastic antenna case was to avoid physical damage to the otherwise rather delicate inch of exposed coax core conductor that forms the antenna for the normal type.