I've just bought my first bit of kit. VRX and Avatar HD Pro kit with single antenna. Popping it on the Eagles to try first. I'll use the Eagles SN fc for rth but accept no osd possible. Disappointed that the voltage on the osd is just the VRX voltage. I'd assumed it would show onboard supply voltage. Hopefully I'll enjoy the digital experience . Thanks for your hard work 👍
Agreed. Their V1 VTXs and V1 goggles are both better than their V2 VTXs and goggles. I thought companies were supposed to improve products with new versions, not make them worse!
I'd definitely bust the 400 ft altitude barrier, buddy! I'm a pilot since 77 and have busted military airspace,along with ADIZ airspace many, MANY times lol 🤠🤠🤠🤠, but awesome job! Buddy
I wouldn't sweat it too much... lol It's not a bad transmitter. It's pretty comparable to the original V2 I think, I was just kinda expecting an improvement with the dual antennas.
I did have some solar lights out there for while, but they were not all the effective and barely visible until I was right on top of them, and it was really dark... lol The hassle of dodging them with the mower wasn't worth it in the long run, and I never replaced them after they stopped working.
Actually turns out I didn't order this v3 VTX after all. Its the earlier 32g giro camera setup...This setup is cheaper and smaller, assuming it doesn't have the same RF output?....Try selecting different frequencies, it may be a tuning issue?....😳😳😏🇬🇧
Well that's awfully disappointing. I had my hopes up for this unit bringing the best of both into one place. Hopefully they eventually bring us a unit that surpasses all of the current ones in every way. Thanks for your review!
It would be tremendously helpful to know the center tuned frequency of the antennas, don't you think? This is why I use Foxeer antennas - they publish the center and edge swr.... this is one of the most important characteristics of any antenna. How the heck can you test radio stuff without knowing how far off-frequency you are??
Check the beginning of this video, it shows some of the parts and how they're laid out. It's all pretty much the same, I just swapped the V1 cam/vtx for the V2. ruclips.net/video/mHO-zCoD0qM/видео.html
I use the VRX module, and fly with a monitor. It's a normal HDMI output so anything that can display it will work. I actually split the HDMI signal with a cheap 1 in/2 out splitter and run one to the monitor, and the other to a capture card on my computer.
@@bonafidepirate Thank you for your reply. Are you saying you take the HDMI output from the Walksnail receiver and feed it into a HDMI monitor without the goggles in between. I have not been able to get the signal into the monitor that way.
@@BradJurjensOfficial Check and see if you're using high frame rate or standard. (100fps or 60fps) Most monitors won't like the 100fps output, but nearly all will work with 60fps.
Got it. Finally saw on a video that there is a hidden button you have to push with a sharp thing to get the picture going. Why doesn’t it say that anywhere? Like am I supposed to figure that out on my own or what
@@BradJurjensOfficial Yeah the transmitter has to be bound to the receiver. It's in the manuals, I think they call it "linking" at least in the VRX one.
The almost predictable and sudden signal drop off leads me to believe that the issue is somehow distance + time related, just as with the 13km hard limit of DJI. To test this theory, you can try high(er) gain directional antenna's on your video receiver. I don't know what you're using on the ground side right now, but if you use much higher gain VRX antennas and you still get a almost hard drop off at the river then you'll know for sure it's time related, and perhaps the developers will have a clue about what to look for and fix then.
I don't think that's the case here, I've seen some small variation in the distance where it drops off, and looking at the debug info (with signal levels for each antenna), it's a gradual drop off until the end. I'm positive there's no "baked in" set limit in all the rest of the gear, and doubt they would have on here. I think it's more likely just the limit if what I can do while keeping it under 400ft. I'm confident it will go much farther with altitude, but yeah... lol On the ground I'm using the VRX with the stock patches built in, and two 9.4db TFP on the top connectors. It's the same setup I've used from the start for all my Walksnail flying and testing.
@@bonafidepirate With patches and 2 high gain antennas its range is disappointing compared to DJI. I was thinking of switching to Walksnail but its range has to improve.
@@WinstonSmith1984 Has anyone done a range test on DJI while keeping it under 400ft? Don't consider this indicative of max range, the altitude it limiting things for sure. People have gone 10s of miles on Walksnail in the right conditions and better antennas. I'm just doing relative testing keeping the "playing field" even between the different gear, in a way that's easy to repeat.
@@bonafidepirate Altitude is the point. The fresnel zone .... On my glider I get with the double altitude of yours., 7.5 Km and with 100m more, 9.5 km on a wing. And that, with two Hammers on the plane and two Albatross omni on the VRX. No video breakup, only the lantency doubles/ triplicates and the osd starts flickering, but only near the end of my range. This is my idicator for a turn to home in the next moments.
Yep, the OSD elements will always flicker while onboard recording is active. It didn't bother me as much before we had more storage and gyroflow... lol I'd like to utilize that more often. It's something Walksnail says they intend to fix, hopefully we'll see that soon! In the mean time, with no recording onboard the OSD should be solid and stable until you're close to the end of range where it will still lose packets here and there a you'd expect.
@@bonafidepirate thanks so much. I bought the vrx kit last year just started using it recently.i was like 20 updates behind. Bought the system, tried it once and wasn't impressed. Bunch of updates later and it's a honestly a different system quite good in my sky zones. Only annoying thing was the osd but you solved that for me.
Doesn’t the stock osd on the bottom left normally show distance from home instead of ms ? Is there anything else u can do with the stock osd. I won’t be running a flight controller/ osd that’s all.
Yes it can show distance based on ToF, or time of flight, of the signals between the sky and ground. I have that switched off just because I have distance on the osd already.
@@Chris_Paul1 As far as I remember you can turn the distance on/off, or the whole built in OSD on/off. There may be some other settings for the warnings too, for signal and voltages. You can certainly display it all together though.
After the V1 they somehow changed the amplifier. Chris Rosser has a Video that shows that basically all new VTX never transmit more then 500mw, regardless what you set. Only the V1 seems to transmit actually 700 or close to 1000mw, depending on the Setting.Thanks for all your testing! You are using the VRX with the integrated Patch Antennas on a Tracker or what is your setup on the receiving side?
I actually looked at that too. I don't have any cool tools like Chris, but the debug info shows the set power level for the transmitter and receiver. (technically both transceivers) This dual antenna V2 follows the same power levels for each setting in the menu as the original V1. In fact I reached out to Chris and asked if he'd be interested in verifying this, but haven't got a reply yet. I'm using the VRX with it's built in patches, and two 9.4db TFPs on the top connectors. It's fixed mounted on a tripod, no tracker. I was careful to point the antenna on a heading to a known landmark, and stayed on course to stay in front of the antennas during the flight, tracking the plane in Mission Planner on the map to be sure. If I strayed too far off either side I'd see signal level and bitrate start to drop accordingly.
I printed it, it's one of my designs you can find here: www.thingiverse.com/thing:5949160 It was designed for the original transmitters, but works fine for this one too.
@@attackfpv No the bracket is a standard metal bracket I had in my parts box from some old analog FPV cameras. Like this one - shop.runcam.com/brackets-for-runcam-micro-swift/
Interesting video as always. That's really disappointing about the range with this VTX. I would've thought that 4 miles away with 9.4dB patches you should be sitting at 14Mbs no problem, not starting to lose video. This looks like a terrible product from Walksnail. All my VTXs are V1s and I think I'll keep it that way.
Avatar HD Pro Kit - bit.ly/hdprokitdualant
Hammer Antennas - amzn.to/3mxqOMu
Atomrc Swordfish - bit.ly/3JPibp8 (Use code "BONAFIDEPIRATE" for $10 off!)
Can’t wait for the new firmware update whatever it will be.
Awe man, I'm pretty disappointed with that range. I'll stick to the V1 for now.
I've just bought my first bit of kit. VRX and Avatar HD Pro kit with single antenna. Popping it on the Eagles to try first. I'll use the Eagles SN fc for rth but accept no osd possible. Disappointed that the voltage on the osd is just the VRX voltage. I'd assumed it would show onboard supply voltage. Hopefully I'll enjoy the digital experience . Thanks for your hard work 👍
So right now the best combo seems to be V1 VTX and Pro camera with giroflow. Too bad only 8gb onboard recording :/
Agreed. Their V1 VTXs and V1 goggles are both better than their V2 VTXs and goggles. I thought companies were supposed to improve products with new versions, not make them worse!
@@wattage2007is this still a thing with the recent firmware? I'm asking bcs i own a v1 vtx kit and now have a v2 kit on my bench 😅
I'd definitely bust the 400 ft altitude barrier, buddy! I'm a pilot since 77 and have busted military airspace,along with ADIZ airspace many, MANY times lol 🤠🤠🤠🤠, but awesome job! Buddy
Thanks for the video. I just ordered mine but after watching your video I'm kind of not too excited to get it.😮💨
I wouldn't sweat it too much... lol It's not a bad transmitter. It's pretty comparable to the original V2 I think, I was just kinda expecting an improvement with the dual antennas.
Love your flying location! Have you ever considered having runway lights for those late evening landings? That would look great on your vids!
Cheers!
I did have some solar lights out there for while, but they were not all the effective and barely visible until I was right on top of them, and it was really dark... lol The hassle of dodging them with the mower wasn't worth it in the long run, and I never replaced them after they stopped working.
Actually turns out I didn't order this v3 VTX after all. Its the earlier 32g giro camera setup...This setup is cheaper and smaller, assuming it doesn't have the same RF output?....Try selecting different frequencies, it may be a tuning issue?....😳😳😏🇬🇧
I just bought one, just getting into digital
Would be interesting to see how much putting the vrx on something like a ham radio mast improves the range.
Well that's awfully disappointing. I had my hopes up for this unit bringing the best of both into one place. Hopefully they eventually bring us a unit that surpasses all of the current ones in every way.
Thanks for your review!
It would be tremendously helpful to know the center tuned frequency of the antennas, don't you think? This is why I use Foxeer antennas - they publish the center and edge swr.... this is one of the most important characteristics of any antenna. How the heck can you test radio stuff without knowing how far off-frequency you are??
Really weird indeed, Keith... I hope they can fix it as soon as possible!
Awesome flying as always! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Can you do a quick build video. I’m getting a swordfish and have the v2 ready to put in it
Check the beginning of this video, it shows some of the parts and how they're laid out. It's all pretty much the same, I just swapped the V1 cam/vtx for the V2. ruclips.net/video/mHO-zCoD0qM/видео.html
@@bonafidepirate thanks legend. Pretty keen on my swordfish to get here. Currently Chinese new years so everything over there is on halt for a bit.
What font do you use for your osd ? I like the red/green arrows for climb rate
Hey, do you have to use goggles with it only or can you hook up a screen with the hdmi port?
I use the VRX module, and fly with a monitor. It's a normal HDMI output so anything that can display it will work. I actually split the HDMI signal with a cheap 1 in/2 out splitter and run one to the monitor, and the other to a capture card on my computer.
@@bonafidepirate Thank you for your reply. Are you saying you take the HDMI output from the Walksnail receiver and feed it into a HDMI monitor without the goggles in between. I have not been able to get the signal into the monitor that way.
@@BradJurjensOfficial Check and see if you're using high frame rate or standard. (100fps or 60fps) Most monitors won't like the 100fps output, but nearly all will work with 60fps.
Got it. Finally saw on a video that there is a hidden button you have to push with a sharp thing to get the picture going. Why doesn’t it say that anywhere? Like am I supposed to figure that out on my own or what
@@BradJurjensOfficial Yeah the transmitter has to be bound to the receiver. It's in the manuals, I think they call it "linking" at least in the VRX one.
What do you use for mpunting the camera on the servo?
I guess running the pro camera on the v1 vtx would be a solution.
The almost predictable and sudden signal drop off leads me to believe that the issue is somehow distance + time related, just as with the 13km hard limit of DJI. To test this theory, you can try high(er) gain directional antenna's on your video receiver. I don't know what you're using on the ground side right now, but if you use much higher gain VRX antennas and you still get a almost hard drop off at the river then you'll know for sure it's time related, and perhaps the developers will have a clue about what to look for and fix then.
I don't think that's the case here, I've seen some small variation in the distance where it drops off, and looking at the debug info (with signal levels for each antenna), it's a gradual drop off until the end. I'm positive there's no "baked in" set limit in all the rest of the gear, and doubt they would have on here. I think it's more likely just the limit if what I can do while keeping it under 400ft. I'm confident it will go much farther with altitude, but yeah... lol On the ground I'm using the VRX with the stock patches built in, and two 9.4db TFP on the top connectors. It's the same setup I've used from the start for all my Walksnail flying and testing.
@@bonafidepirate With patches and 2 high gain antennas its range is disappointing compared to DJI. I was thinking of switching to Walksnail but its range has to improve.
@@WinstonSmith1984 Has anyone done a range test on DJI while keeping it under 400ft? Don't consider this indicative of max range, the altitude it limiting things for sure. People have gone 10s of miles on Walksnail in the right conditions and better antennas. I'm just doing relative testing keeping the "playing field" even between the different gear, in a way that's easy to repeat.
@@bonafidepirate Altitude is the point. The fresnel zone .... On my glider I get with the double altitude of yours., 7.5 Km and with 100m more, 9.5 km on a wing. And that, with two Hammers on the plane and two Albatross omni on the VRX. No video breakup, only the lantency doubles/ triplicates and the osd starts flickering, but only near the end of my range. This is my idicator for a turn to home in the next moments.
What flight control board are you using?
Thanks.
It's the AtomRC F405-Navi (that comes in the RTF variant) running Ardupilot.
Hi Keith, thanks for your awesome videos. Do you use goggles or the plain vrx for receiver? and stock vrx antenna's?
I use the VRX and a monitor. I have the stock patches in the VRX, with 9.4db TFPs on the top connectors.
Nice, very helpful to me as I might get this vtx soon. also do you have review for the caddx face plate patch antenna for goggle X?
I don't have the goggles, original or "X". I fly with the VRX and a monitor, so no way to try out the antenna on the new ones. ;)
@@bonafidepirate I thinks @caddx should sponsor you one 😂 😂 they missed a nice guy here
Same firmware on the two different hardware vtx? Great video !
Yep, it shipped with the same 34.40.15 that I've been flying.
8min47sec bird came really close to you..
I noticed that too while I was flying... lol I think it was settling down to roost in those trees for the night until I flew over and spooked it.
I have problems with osd elements dropping. Is that a known issue? Its seems to be the same elements too. I only have 6 on screen but still drop them
Yep, the OSD elements will always flicker while onboard recording is active. It didn't bother me as much before we had more storage and gyroflow... lol I'd like to utilize that more often. It's something Walksnail says they intend to fix, hopefully we'll see that soon! In the mean time, with no recording onboard the OSD should be solid and stable until you're close to the end of range where it will still lose packets here and there a you'd expect.
@@bonafidepirate thanks so much. I bought the vrx kit last year just started using it recently.i was like 20 updates behind. Bought the system, tried it once and wasn't impressed. Bunch of updates later and it's a honestly a different system quite good in my sky zones. Only annoying thing was the osd but you solved that for me.
Wow
Doesn’t the stock osd on the bottom left normally show distance from home instead of ms ?
Is there anything else u can do with the stock osd.
I won’t be running a flight controller/ osd that’s all.
Yes it can show distance based on ToF, or time of flight, of the signals between the sky and ground. I have that switched off just because I have distance on the osd already.
Ok thank u. Can it show them all at once or only 4 at a time ?
@@Chris_Paul1 As far as I remember you can turn the distance on/off, or the whole built in OSD on/off. There may be some other settings for the warnings too, for signal and voltages. You can certainly display it all together though.
After the V1 they somehow changed the amplifier. Chris Rosser has a Video that shows that basically all new VTX never transmit more then 500mw, regardless what you set. Only the V1 seems to transmit actually 700 or close to 1000mw, depending on the Setting.Thanks for all your testing! You are using the VRX with the integrated Patch Antennas on a Tracker or what is your setup on the receiving side?
I actually looked at that too. I don't have any cool tools like Chris, but the debug info shows the set power level for the transmitter and receiver. (technically both transceivers) This dual antenna V2 follows the same power levels for each setting in the menu as the original V1. In fact I reached out to Chris and asked if he'd be interested in verifying this, but haven't got a reply yet. I'm using the VRX with it's built in patches, and two 9.4db TFPs on the top connectors. It's fixed mounted on a tripod, no tracker. I was careful to point the antenna on a heading to a known landmark, and stayed on course to stay in front of the antennas during the flight, tracking the plane in Mission Planner on the map to be sure. If I strayed too far off either side I'd see signal level and bitrate start to drop accordingly.
Did you purchase the camera mount or print it?
I printed it, it's one of my designs you can find here: www.thingiverse.com/thing:5949160 It was designed for the original transmitters, but works fine for this one too.
@@bonafidepirate that I includes the cam mount that mounts onto the servo? Thanks for all you do man. Love the content
@@attackfpv No the bracket is a standard metal bracket I had in my parts box from some old analog FPV cameras. Like this one - shop.runcam.com/brackets-for-runcam-micro-swift/
At the time I'm watching this.. It has 400 views with 2.5k thumbs up.
Odd!
I don't see that, I see 406 views and 44 thumbs up right now. RUclips bug perhaps?
Might be on my end.
BTW. Thankyou for the honest review.
I hope Caddx send you another V2 vtx for testing. In case it's a bad unit.
Interesting video as always. That's really disappointing about the range with this VTX. I would've thought that 4 miles away with 9.4dB patches you should be sitting at 14Mbs no problem, not starting to lose video. This looks like a terrible product from Walksnail. All my VTXs are V1s and I think I'll keep it that way.
Do you think this is still a thing after the recent firmware updates? I'm used to run v1 kits. Now have a v2 vtx kit on my work bench 😅