Controller Antenna Position - Solve Disconnects?

[Gorillaman]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about Antenna other than the ones on the Zino Controller give off signal described as the "RF Doughnut".

As the weather here is well below Zero.. flying is not a great idea for about a week. I have seen, heard and experienced several disconnects at close range. Could this be attributed to the "RF Doughnut" effect?

The Antennas in the Zino itself are at the front and vertical. Picture the "RF Doughnut" of those... and then picture the "RF Doughnut" effect of the controller Antennas.

My question is... What if you placed one TX antenna vertical and one horizontal? Would that fill the Doughnut Hole?

I have no idea but really want to test it.

[501Pete]

The issue is that there is a deep null off the end of the antennas.
(this characteristic is used in radio direction finding to determine the bearing of a radio signal).
The null means that virtually no power is transmitted off the ends, and equally no signal is receiver (see Antenna reciprocity theory).

If you mount one vertically, and the other horizontally, you do indeed reduce the issue (although the issue really only happens when the quad is directly overhead).
What you introduce however is polarisation mismatch, one device being vertically polarised and the other horizontally polarised.
This will give you much worse performance overall than the standard setup.
The real answer is to use a circularly polarised antenna at both end of the link.
The fact that you have diversity between the two antennas, means you could get away with just changing one on each device to CP.
This will have many benefits above and beyond the overhead issue.
I'll be honest, I've only once managed to get mine to disconnect when directly overhead, and that was right on the legal altitude limit (125m).
I prefer not to fly directly overhead and for other flying the antennas perform really quite well.
I won't be changing anything anytime soon.

[Gorillaman]

So you are saying an antenna (mod) set up like most do for the H501s would be a better option?

[501Pete]

So you are saying an antenna (mod) set up like most do for the H501s would be a better option?

I don't see many people using CP antennas on their 501s.
But yes. Replace one antenna on the quad with a CP one, a clover leaf or similar, and do the same on the controller and that will solve the overhead issue completely.
Instead of a clover leaf on the controller, add a CP gain antenna, perhaps a helical or a panel, and that will not only fix the overhead issue but also substantially increase the range too.

[me_157abXgZCo]

What I was doing for flying directly overhead/vertical, is to direct the antennas horizontal and in parallel. Then you´d only are flying in the deep 0 of the 'donut', if you are pointing them directly towards your drone when flying very near to the ground; but I think in most cases this only happens when you are quite near to the drone (take-off and landing), where the distance between cntroller and drone is quite low....