What Wirless Video System are you using?

jdolecki · 2012-10-01 08:14

What wireless transmitters and receivers are you guys using?

Will the 2.4 ghz transmitters work with the Spectrum 2.4 ghz radios

Were did you get it?

NWCCTV · 2012-10-01 12:20

OK. First, Let me start by saying I design, sell, install and set up CCTV for a living. (Computers also, but CCTV is what keeps me busy right now.) I have used many types of wirelss systems and will tell you to stay away from 2.4 GHz. The main reason is becuase of interference from Wireless Networks, ceel phones, and even a Microwave will disrupt the broadcast. A 5.8 GHz system will do a couple things. You get better range with them and the interference, although still possible is minimal. I also would not reccommend any of the cheap stuff such as that on EBay for $49.00 or whatever. You want the wireless device seperate from the camera. These guys http://qorvus.com/ have some of the BEST wireless equipment on the market but are somewhat pricey. For a cheaper yet still good alternative try http://www.ubnt.com/. You will be much happier not using the Camera/Wireless combo unless it is from a high end company. In terms of quality, CCTV and especially wireless CCTV, you get what you pay for.

Edit:
xanadu brings up a good point. I guess I should have asked that before going in to detail!!!!

xanadu · 2012-10-01 12:23

What is the application? Is this for a model plane or something?

Duane Degn · 2012-10-01 14:12

Those Qorvus cameras look pretty high end. I imagine there stuff costs a lot and it doesn't look like they sell there stuff to the general public.

I'm guessing jdolecki (John?) wants something to put on one of his cool robots.

I have a 900MHz transmitter I purchased from SuperCircuits. I couldn't find it on their website the last time I looked but it looks a lot like the transmitter here.

In the ELEV-8 camera thread, Nick recommends this 5.8GHz transmitter.

I'm no wireless expert but I thought I read that the lower freqencies have better range than high freqencies using the same amount of power. This makes me wonder why people are using 5.8GHz transmitters?

My 900MHz works pretty well. It does get hot after it has been on a while.

On one of the RC gear sites I saw a really cool setup that would use a directional antenna to track a RC aircraft. I beleive it used one of the audio channels to transmit GPS information so the antenna brains would know where to point the antenna. I tried to find this setup again but couldn't.

I'd really like to hear what others here are doing too. I haven't had the guts to fly my quadcopter using just the video link yet but I'd like to be able to sometime so I'd like to find a very reliable system.

BTW, I also tried one of those 2.4GHz mini wireless security camera I purchased from a hardware store and I couldn't get any image for it onece I started up my RC heli. (I was using a 2.4GHz RC system).

NWCCTV · 2012-10-01 14:29

Qorvus only sells the Xmtr/Rcvr. They then connect through a router or direct connection to analog cameras. The cameras that are on their web site are Mobotix. A very high end German camera. Not sure where you were reading about the lower frequency. 5.8 Ghz systems are used to transmit at times up to 3 miles or more LOS. 900 MHz cameras are also prone to cell phone interuption, especially with older cell phones and also police scanners. A lot of police scanners run on that frequency so they can eaves drop on cell phone calls, which in turn is why it is illegal to own a scanner that uses the 900 MHz frequency (in the US).

NWCCTV · 2012-10-01 14:31

Duane Degn wrote: »

BTW, I also tried one of those 2.4GHz mini wireless security camera I purchased from a hardware store and I couldn't get any image for it onece I started up my RC heli. (I was using a 2.4GHz RC system).

What power were you using? I had this same issue with one of them years ago and I dropped the power supply to an 8 volt DC on the camera side and it worked fine.

xanadu · 2012-10-01 15:38

I've used three 2.4gHz devices (tx,vtx and xbee) all on the same rc airplane and it doesn't matter as long as the rc rx antenna is far away from the video tx antenna on the airplane.

I have run an XBee looping back streaming data as close as possible to a 2.4gHz Spektrum and neither one noticed each other. I couldn't say if it affected range the airplane is too small to fly to far away.

The gHz doesn't determine the frequencies range as much as the mW. The more mW the more battery drain also.

W9GFO · 2012-10-01 15:56

I have read, heard and experienced that all else being equal, lower frequencies have greater range than higher frequencies. Only recently, since 5.8 gHz has become popular have I read that it has superior (or equal) range to 2.5 gHz. I am anxious to hear a technical explanation for this.

Duane Degn · 2012-10-01 16:01

NWCCTV wrote: »

5.8 Ghz systems are used to transmit at times up to 3 miles or more LOS.

I see 5.8GHz used a lot with RC video links, but I'm pretty sure the higher frequencies need higher power to provide the same range.

NWCCTV wrote: »

What power were you using? I had this same issue with one of them years ago and I dropped the power supply to an 8 volt DC on the camera side and it worked fine.

The experimented with the 2.4GHz camera/tx a few years ago. I think I used a small 9V battery since it came with a connection to use with a 9V.

xanadu wrote: »

The gHz doesn't determine the frequencies range as much as the mW. The more mW the more battery drain also.

I still think the frequency affects the range. The quote below is from the 900MHz tx page I linked to earlier.

500mW 900MHz transmitter offers similar range to 2.4GHz 1000mW transmitters.

I'm pretty sure there's some equation which includes power and frequency for determining range. I'll try to find it. I bet one of our Ham radio guys could clear this up for us.

xanadu · 2012-10-01 17:48

I agree frequency affects range, but with these products not as much as the tx power. Some of the tx powers listed are very poor and would make the gHz not even matter. Older 900mHz gear can have as low as 50mw, while newer 2.4gHz systems have 1000mw.

According to the FCC, the 5gHz range can be stronger (Equivalent Isotropically Radiated Power (EIRP)) in a fixed point to point system, which is why some 5gHz systems have better range than 2.4gHz system. They also require larger antennas and more battery power which adds more weight. Sounds like overkill for something small.

Most FPV systems use 900mHz w/ diversity for video because it is cheap, low power and there's no crossing into the 2.4gHz range to worry about. Diversity will save you issues if you don't have a moving antenna.

The bottom line is if you want to be safe, and save a couple bucks go for 900mHz video down link. I personally had no luck with 900mHz but that was a long time ago. I've read a lot of positive reviews on other systems though.

You local RC flying club probably has at least 50% of it using FPV setups, you should go down and check them out people always want to show them off

Peter KG6LSE · 2012-10-01 19:29

Hate to be a Buzz Kill ,,,,,, Umm 900 1.2 2.4 5.6 are also part of the ham bands.... IMO I would not be putting out 1 wall on aany thing near a ham band unless Iam shure that Ill cause no cross channel QRM ..

902 - 928 MHz

* United States Navy radars and other government operations (RADIOLOCATION)- primary
* Industrial, Scientific and Medical [Part 18]
* Location and Monitoring Service ("LMS"). [Part 90 Subpart M]

A: 902.000 - 904.000 Non-Multilateration
B: 904.000 - 909.750 Multilateration
C: 909.750 - 919.750 Non-Multilateration
919.750 - 921.750 Multilateration and Non-Multilateration
E: 921.750 - 927.250 Multilateration
F: 927.250 - 927.500 Narrow band associated with sub-band E
G: 927.500 - 927.750 Narrow band associated with sub-band D
H: 927.750 - 928.000 Narrow band associated with sub-band B

o Multilateration systems - use spread-spectrum technology to locate vehicles (and other moving objects) with great accuracy throughout a wide geographic area.
+ FCC Auction Fact Sheet
o Non-multilateration systems - typically use narrowband technology to transmit data to and from vehicles passing through a particular location.
o Automatic Vehicle Monitoring Service ("AVM") - 903-912 and 918-927 MHz [90.363]
* Amateur (33 centimeter band) [Part 97]
* Unlicensed low power services [Part 15]
o Unlicensed field disturbance sensors [15.245]
o Unlicensed spread spectrum transmitters [15.247]
o Intentional radiators, 50 millivolts/meter at 3 meters [15.249]
o Ricochet wireless data network [Part 15]

I am just bringing this up as I see WAY to many posts that preach wireless and not the laws that involve it ...
I hate to sound like a Old fart but I testesd my rear off to get my call and I am not amused that people are just treating the air as its a play ground ,, \Every protental radiator I build from a project to a RF amp gets to go on my spectrum analyzer. Its my duty as a Ham to not jam others ..... I relize that not every hobby builder can sink 10 Grand in to a box but some due diliigance is needed to make a effort to not make things that can be QRM ..

Look I used to do SAR work with the Civil Air Patrol . One Misson I was not directly involved with but heard abour was a incendent involving a belkin Ipod dock that SET OFF A 121.5 Distress sat in orbit ....... a day of searching and tons of man hours in the air and ground ..... all cause some 50 dollar dock was some how putting our some kind of RFI on 121.5 ....... they found that dock in a house and the police had to make a knock on that door ,,, some poor kid had to unplug his dock and Ill bet he had NO clue why his mom had to just throw it out and get a new one .. and that was a Belkin off the rack some EE made it I hope with care device ..

you are aware that a Prop Pin at 60.75 MHz at a 2ed harmonic can put a sig on 121.5 .... granted that is a Dead Frew now that 400 new EPRB beacons are required.

just Be careful .....

Peter KG6LSE

W9GFO wrote: »

I have read, heard and experienced that all else being equal, lower frequencies have greater range than higher frequencies. Only recently, since 5.8 gHz has become popular have I read that it has superior (or equal) range to 2.5 gHz. I am anxious to hear a technical explanation for this.

Noise floor is one reason ! .... all that 2.4 WiFi is a spread spectrum but its still watts in to the Eather

you have enough WIFI and you can see on a SA the noise go up higher then on 1.2 or 5.8 ..

most DECT phones are on 5.8 so the older 1.2 is now more open to less noise and like NWCCTV said . Live the oven and the WiFi on 2.4 for all I care these days .. that band is full .

Duane Degn · 2012-10-01 19:44

Peter KG6LSE wrote: »

900 1.2 2.4 5.6 are also part of the ham bands....

Thanks Peter. I was wondering about which of these transmitters required a license.

I've purchased the AARL book and I've studied a bit of it. I better get back to studying it to make sure I'm not causing problems for others (and to get my license).

I'm guessing the reason for all the 5.8GHz video links is because of the lower freqencies are assigned for other uses. I noticed the 900MHz transmitter I linked to is locked to channel 1 on the US version.

I know some XBees use a frequency around 900MHz so I'm sure there are some legal ways to use these frequencies without a license.

I'm sure you'll be glad to know I've retired my video link that I build from a Popular Electronics kit that transmitted on the old analog channel 4. I'm sure that one was not legal to use. It was a 2 Watt transmitter.

W9GFO · 2012-10-01 19:57

W9GFO wrote: »

I have read, heard and experienced that all else being equal, lower frequencies have greater range than higher frequencies. Only recently, since 5.8 gHz has become popular have I read that it has superior (or equal) range to 2.5 gHz. I am anxious to hear a technical explanation for this.

Peter KG6LSE wrote: »

Noise floor is one reason ! .... all that 2.4 WiFi is a spread spectrum but its still watts in to the Eather

you have enough WIFI and you can see on a SA the noise go up higher then on 1.2 or 5.8 ...

This explains why some frequency would be a better choice in environments saturated with some other frequency - but you will always do better when that is the case. Not unique to 5.8 gHz.

Peter KG6LSE · 2012-10-01 20:08

I hope I did not sound Miffed at any one .Tis not my intentions !
but after that one mission I was left in awe how much a toy can do to the USAF and the Civil Air Patrol ..

Duane

you can play with part 15 stuff all day ,, and Really Il be blunt most of the time any thing above the GPS of 2GHz or so is kinda no mans land .. you are not gonna jam a ham on 5.8 ,,,, no true COTS ham gear that is made mass scale is available . the ARRL handbook is a very good place to start and really is a huge step Fwd for any one to tinker with RF.

De W9GFO .. Yea its amazing how Noise floor can mess up weak Sigs , My old LAN was known to just add one s unit on my Old 2M SSB DX rig , I FWIW I now use Only STP not UTP for my LAN .

Noise floor ./ the shouting that happens in a rock concert .....

SRLM · 2012-10-01 20:26

Peter KG6LSE wrote: »

Hate to be a Buzz Kill ,,,,,, Umm 900 1.2 2.4 5.6 are also part of the ham bands.... IMO I would not be putting out 1 wall on aany thing near a ham band unless Iam shure that Ill cause no cross channel QRM ..

I suspect that the 900MHz of discussion is actually the ISM band of 902-928MHz, which is free for use without a license.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

http://www.afar.net/tutorials/fcc-rules/

xanadu · 2012-10-01 20:39

There are no worries with 121.5. I monitor it all the time and hear all kinds of weird stuff on it, doesn't set off and alarms unless it is a distress beep beep beeeeeeeep beeeeeeeep sound. You can test your ELT and hear it anywhere as long as it's the first five minutes of the hour.

All that is moving to 406MHz real quick anyway.

Duane Degn · 2012-10-01 21:00

W9GFO wrote: »

Only recently, since 5.8 gHz has become popular have I read that it has superior (or equal) range to 2.5 gHz. I am anxious to hear a technical explanation for this.

I doubt you'll hear one. I think the only reason people think it's superior is because of how crowded 2.4GHz is with all the wireless mice, keyboards, routers etc.

Whenever I've seen 5.8GHz gear listed for sale the range is generally listed as half of the 2.4GHz gear.

I do think the higher frequencies have an advantage of being able to transmit at higher data rates.

xanadu · 2012-10-01 21:09

There are office buildings all around the US that only have 2.4GHz APs in them. It's so congested nothing 2.4 works so you roll out 5.8GHz and lol.

Hey jdolecki you started a big convo here lol, you going to divulge more on your project?

Duane Degn · 2012-10-01 21:20

Do any of you have video transmitting gear that would work on a robot or aircraft? If so, I (and I assume the OP) would really like to know what your experiences have been with th gear.

I'll be glad to test my transmitter's range, current draw etc, except I don't know where one could buy it now. I suppose I could check how much current it draws to see if it uses the same amount of power as the 500mW tx I linked to earlier. It does look like it's the same transmitter.

I'd also be interested in knowing if any of you have FPV gear and what you think of it.

jdolecki · 2012-10-02 02:02

I just looking for a dependable place to purchase this stuff. 99% of the listings on e-bay are from china ( not that i have a problem with that) I just don't know which to go with. And the few place in the US have bad reviews from what I read on the RC universe fourms.

I read somewere the the current distance record is held by a 900 mhz system.

My ground robot is RC controlled with the Spectrum 2.4 ghz radio in manual mode.

The Idea for my "Curiosity" robot is to seek up on wild life and take Pictures and Video. Some of you may remember my earlier post were I had my Go Pro mounted to my tracked Robot? I have since sold my tracked robot added a 2inch lift and new wheels to my wheeled robot.

xanadu · 2012-10-03 15:27

Okay so you have a ground robot. Weight doesn't matter as much which opens up a zillion options.

I personally have used 4 channel 900MHz video senders, and CCTV cameras. The main reason I went with a 4 channel wireless video encoder was that I had more than one robot and camera.

If you just have a single camera than do you want IR night vision? That would work good for sneaking up on things at night.

Do you have a pan tilt base? Or does the camera need built in pan/tilt?

Duane Degn · 2012-10-04 13:24

Duane Degn wrote: »

On one of the RC gear sites I saw a really cool setup that would use a directional antenna to track a RC aircraft. I beleive it used one of the audio channels to transmit GPS information so the antenna brains would know where to point the antenna. I tried to find this setup again but couldn't.

I found the site with a directional antenna that tracks RC aircraft.

Here's the video.

[video=vimeo;7766312]

This has a pretty strong "cool factor" IMO. I also think it would greatly improve the range of the system.

I'm pretty sure I'll want to purchase some FPV headgear, I'm still trying to decide on the best option. Some of the gear has an optional head tracking option. I think I'd need to hack my Spektrum 7 channel transmitter to use it with the headtracking option, but I think hacking the TX would be easier to building my own head tracking system (since I have some experience hacking Spektrum TXs).

If any of you have tried head tracking gear, I'd like to know what you think about the systems you've tried.

What Wirless Video System are you using?

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