New to flying r/c

[FDS]

It’s a 200Mw limit in the United Kingdom and most of the EU. In some places it’s 0, you can not operate ANY equipment in the 5.4mhz range without a ham licence. Google your local laws.
Club guys will also know the rules.
You don’t need a full flight controller with GPS to smooth out your flying, a simple Stabiliser receiver will do that. There’s several different ones for different radio systems and they all work the same but performance varies. Some work better than others.
LOS flying isn’t just about staying legal, it’s essential for taking off and landing your plane! You can land under FPV but it’s harder. Also the skills you accumulate LOS will help your FPV.

 

[Morgajus]

Sound advice.
I do plan to learn line of sight before going fpv.

I have an 6-channel frsky flysky i6 (cheap but effective) tx/rx right now. Looking into the 10 channel firmware mod in the future, but i need to hammer out if it makes it so i have to use(learn) an i-bus or if i can find a 10-channel rx that uses the same protocols. I think that would make it compatible, right?
If that all works out I might swap in a longer range antenna set-up too.

But, again these are all future plans. My first step is to finish a plane (aka put electronics in it... shipping times are weird.) And then learn to fly LoS.

EDIT: frsky flysky

 

[sprzout]

So many responses, thank you all.

Checked with my local club, turns out I already know a few of the members lol. They ask $10 normally.

So generally its a 200 mW limit?
I agree LOS before fpv. I'm trying to be responsible with my hobbying (leagally and monetarily.)

When I get into long range fpv stuff I will definately look into a flight controller to smooth out latency issues and/or random wind changes in the mountain passes.

Keep in mind that if you are flying long range FPV in the US, you or a spotter are still required to be able to see your aircraft visually. People have tried to skirt this by using cell phones to communicate back and forth so they can keep it in sight over several miles, but that's been squashed after a DJI Phantom owner had a collision with a BlackHawk helicopter back in January of last year.

Limits for video vary here in the States. You can purchase an 800mw VTX from places like Banggood, but that doesn't make it legal to use it. I want to say that the legal limit is 600mw, but most pilots are running 200mw or less.

If you ever plan on doing any sort of racing for MultiGP, they want you on 25mw or less; 8 pilots flying at the same time blasting out 200mw signals on channels that are, many times, very close to one another in frequency, can cause bleed over and loss of signal. Less wattage for something being flown in a field the size of a football field or less is a good thing. What I'd recommend is a variable power VTX. They're a little more expensive, but with the ability to turn down the signal to a lower wattage, you'll make more friends that fly FPV than not.

 

[Morgajus]

That poor blackhawk
Used to work with the dustoff guys overseas, if ANYTHING goes wrong in a non-combat operation it's a metric butt-tonne of paperwork, maintenance time and reports to go through.

Thanks for the US clarification. Off to the internet to research local laws...

I was/am looking at a 5v $20 aio that hobbyking sells. It says there is a screw to adjust the power output from 25mW to 200mW. Might shell out the extra $10 to get the one with simple OSD. Someday.

I anticipate upgrading most if not all of my gear before i get into any kind of race situation.

 

[sprzout]

That poor blackhawk
Used to work with the dustoff guys overseas, if ANYTHING goes wrong in a non-combat operation it's a metric butt-tonne of paperwork, maintenance time and reports to go through.

Thanks for the US clarification. Off to the internet to research local laws...

I was/am looking at a 5v $20 aio that hobbyking sells. It says there is a screw to adjust the power output from 25mW to 200mW. Might shell out the extra $10 to get the one with simple OSD. Someday.

I anticipate upgrading most if not all of my gear before i get into any kind of race situation.

The pilot and crew on the BlackHawk were ok, but it was something lik $250,000 damage caused by the drone impacting the side. Pilot was 2.5 mi. out off the coast of NJ, seeing how far out he could go, and couldn't see the approaching helicopter. He'd figured it just went down after losing signal (which seems stupid to me; why fly over a large body of water where, if your $1000 aircraft goes down, you can't recover it and just go, "Oh well, I'm out a thousand bucks?")

It's why I want to fly in a known good area, I guess...Less of a chance to collide with objects, and I can recover it if it does go down.

 

[Morgajus]

I sense a cover story...

"Theres a blackhawk, im gonna go look at it... Oh crap i hit it... shhh! this never happened"

Unless its an established rc field I don't plan to fly near any full sized aircraft.

 

[sprzout]

I sense a cover story...

"Theres a blackhawk, im gonna go look at it... Oh crap i hit it... shhh! this never happened"

Unless its an established rc field I don't plan to fly near any full sized aircraft.

Smart thing. And even then, when flying at an established field, you sometimes have to get out of the way. When I was learning to fly at my club's field, we had a helicopter buzz us at about 100 ft up, and kept circling our field, preventing us from flying effectively...

 

[Morgajus]

Smart thing. And even then, when flying at an established field, you sometimes have to get out of the way. When I was learning to fly at my club's field, we had a helicopter buzz us at about 100 ft up, and kept circling our field, preventing us from flying effectively...

Had to stall a few rocket launches for the same reason. Private pilot in a 2 seater wanted to breach the no-fly zone order to watch our launch. 30 minutes of circling before he gave up or got told off.

 

[MorningViewFPV]

1watt is the "legal" limit on 5.725-5.825 (upper band of 5ghz) in the US.

 

[sprzout]

1watt is the "legal" limit on 5.725-5.825 (upper band of 5ghz) in the US.

That's severe overkill for something staying within LOS of a spotter, though, and blasting that much power is going to stomp on anyone else on other frequencies outside of the band you may be on (and sometimes even within the same band).

Plus, there are heat issues with running a larger VTX; I don't think the trade off is worth it if you're potentially frying your equipment from not getting enough airflow over the VTX...

 

[Morgajus]

Dually noted. 1 watt is most likely too much.

Would 6 channels and 3 mixes be enough for differential thrust, ailerons, rudder, elevator, and flaps?
4 on the sticks and 2 toggles or knobs.
Every time I think about it, I flip-flop between 6 and 7 channels required. Or should I forget about the flaps until a beefier tx/rx becomes necessary for me?

DISCLAIMER: this would be for after learning to fly without differential thurst.

 

[FDS]

Channels required-
4 for the TAER
1 for the second motor
1 for the flaps.
That’s your 6, so no camera pan/bomb drop/gear if you go to 6.
If you are set on being limited by using a pre programmed, “brand” locked system like Spektrum then you should buy 8 channels, it’s very unlikely you would need more in fixed wing.
If you want a feature, get the gear that enables you to use it. You don’t have to use everything for your first flight but if you are paying money for gear, get what you want!
If you are spending more than about $80 on your TX my advice is to buy ONE only, which will do all your projected flying, otherwise you are better off going cheap or entry level second hand and saving up for your dream set up.
My personal thoughts on TX’s are here.

 

[Morgajus]

Channels required-
4 for the TAER
1 for the second motor
1 for the flaps.
That’s your 6, so no camera pan/bomb drop/gear if you go to 6.
If you are set on being limited by using a pre programmed, “brand” locked system like Spektrum then you should buy 8 channels, it’s very unlikely you would need more in fixed wing.
If you want a feature, get the gear that enables you to use it. You don’t have to use everything for your first flight but if you are paying money for gear, get what you want!
If you are spending more than about $80 on your TX my advice is to buy ONE only, which will do all your projected flying, otherwise you are better off going cheap or entry level second hand and saving up for your dream set up.
My personal thoughts on TX’s are here.

With differential thrust, do you usually keep a motor in channel 1 then? The FT video discussing it seemed to say otherwise, which confused me.

The tx/rx setup I have is from previous projects.

I am looking at possibly modding my radio to support 10 channels and then getting the branded 10ch rx for all the options. Eventually...

I've already dropped it in a pond (then into a bag of rice) so I imagine its remaining life span is limited.

 

[sprzout]

Dually noted. 1 watt is most likely too much.

Would 6 channels and 3 mixes be enough for differential thrust, ailerons, rudder, elevator, and flaps?
4 on the sticks and 2 toggles or knobs.
Every time I think about it, I flip-flop between 6 and 7 channels required. Or should I forget about the flaps until a beefier tx/rx becomes necessary for me?

DISCLAIMER: this would be for after learning to fly without differential thurst.

So...This is kind of sticky. I think that, regardless of the brand of radio, you should always buy more channels than you need. If you think you'll only ever need 6 channels for flying, get 8. If you think you'll need 8, go for 9 or 10 or 12. The reason for this is that you'll think you're good with the radio you buy, and then discover that no, you want to do bomb drops. Or you forgot that you need a separate channel for telemetry. Or the new glider that you're looking at has airbrakes in addition to the flaps and v-tail configuration that you wanted. Or that really cool scale heli that needs 7 channels to fly, you found a lighting system that ties in to one of the channels, and you want it to be on a switch.

There are a myriad of reasons to use those extra channels, and you don't realize that you need it until you're at the limit. Does that mean that you should go out and buy that 18 or 20 channel radio as your transmitter, spending $800-$1000? No. I think you should only buy that sort of radio if you KNOW that you'll be using it.

But, if you plan on doing a little more down the line, such as the bomb drops, retractable landing gear, flaps, then I would make the investment and buy the most you can afford in the way of channels, rather than throwing say, $200 at a 6 channel radio when you could have put about $100 more into it and gotten a really nice 8 channel with all the bells and whistles that you really wanted (and these prices are rough estimates for what I know based on the Spektrum brand - you may find a different brand to be cheaper or more expensive, depending). Spending $200 and then realizing that you didn't get the channel or the features you wanted in it, and then having to put out an additional $300-$1000 (again, depending on what radio model and brand you're looking at) to get what you REALLY wanted, can rankle some people and put them off the hobby.

 

[Morgajus]

So...This is kind of sticky. I think that, regardless of the brand of radio, you should always buy more channels than you need. If you think you'll only ever need 6 channels for flying, get 8. If you think you'll need 8, go for 9 or 10 or 12. The reason for this is that you'll think you're good with the radio you buy, and then discover that no, you want to do bomb drops. Or you forgot that you need a separate channel for telemetry. Or the new glider that you're looking at has airbrakes in addition to the flaps and v-tail configuration that you wanted. Or that really cool scale heli that needs 7 channels to fly, you found a lighting system that ties in to one of the channels, and you want it to be on a switch.

There are a myriad of reasons to use those extra channels, and you don't realize that you need it until you're at the limit. Does that mean that you should go out and buy that 18 or 20 channel radio as your transmitter, spending $800-$1000? No. I think you should only buy that sort of radio if you KNOW that you'll be using it.

But, if you plan on doing a little more down the line, such as the bomb drops, retractable landing gear, flaps, then I would make the investment and buy the most you can afford in the way of channels, rather than throwing say, $200 at a 6 channel radio when you could have put about $100 more into it and gotten a really nice 8 channel with all the bells and whistles that you really wanted (and these prices are rough estimates for what I know based on the Spektrum brand - you may find a different brand to be cheaper or more expensive, depending). Spending $200 and then realizing that you didn't get the channel or the features you wanted in it, and then having to put out an additional $300-$1000 (again, depending on what radio model and brand you're looking at) to get what you REALLY wanted, can rankle some people and put them off the hobby.

I can see the wisdom in that. Will definately consider it for my next radio. Hopefully a $20 rx, $20-$30 antenna mod and free firmware update will push that purchase out atleast a year. Then it will be upgrading from a 10ch "$100" system to a probably more reliable 10+ch $200 or $300 system.

 

[FDS]

You could just buy one $100-150 OpenTX multi protocol radio with a module bay either second hand or new and never need another radio....

 

[Morgajus]

You could just buy one $100-150 OpenTX multi protocol radio with a module bay either second hand or new and never need another radio....

I could... getfpv has one for $90 right now. But thats a future me problem

 

[FDS]

Sadly future me has spent present me’s hobby budget already!

 

[Morgajus]

Sadly future me has spent present me’s hobby budget already!

I know that pain.

 

[Morgajus]

ANOTHER question...

If I wanted to power 2 escs separately(for whatever reason), but still have them connected to the same rx, would I just remove the 5v pin from one of the BEC plugs?

I ran into a similar problem with my robot but I can't remember the verdict.