by iflylilplanes » Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:16 pm
This is what I know from a friend heavy into FPV, No, you can not add a second antenna, and yes you can make a wire (I'm not sure of the spelling) dipoll antenna. The standard antenna is a tubular dipoll. The mod is you will need a short length of 0.5 mm copper wire, after you remove the old antenna expose around 32 mm of the inner plastic coated core and don't cut off the the shielding, now the .5 mm copper wire needs to be looped (just a 1 mm end) around the base of the shielding and soldered in place , what you have now will look like an L on the end of the cable with the excess shielding coming out of the solder joint, remove the excess shielding and bend the plastic coated core 90 degrees so it is in line with the copper wire, the plastic coated core needs to be trimmed to 29.5 mm in length (no more, no less) then trim the copper wire to 29.5 mm or an over all length both core and copper to 59 mm. What you now have looks like a T shape, you can strengthen the solder joint with a little hot glue...... Don't take me as 100% correct, my FPV mate tunes these antennas with a nail file board to remove the end of the copper wire taking off a few thou at a time, but he has a lot of electronic test equipment to test with, but he's after max distance
Others in this forum may know if I have made a mistake or two in my description. Good luck.
Many Thanks,
Dave W.
Dead Stick Glide Distance: Half the distance from the airplane to the nearest emergency landing field.