61 articles
A good FPV antenna is the underrated heart of any reliable video system. No matter how high-quality your video transmitter and camera may be—if the antenna is poorly positioned, incorrectly polarized, or simply incompatible with the receiver, image quality suffers, range drops dramatically, and in the worst case, you’ll lose the video feed in the middle of flight. A well-designed antenna setup on both the transmitter and receiver, on the other hand, gets the most out of the entire video system.
The most important concept when it comes to FPV antennas is circular polarization. Antennas transmit and receive their signal either left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) or right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP). For optimal transmission, the transmitter and receiver antennas must have the same polarization. If you mix LHCP and RHCP, you’ll lose a significant amount of signal strength. If you’re using digital HD systems, you should also note that these often specify their own antenna polarization—which must be taken into account when upgrading or adding antennas.
There are two basic types of antennas: Omnidirectional antennas radiate the signal evenly in all directions and are the top choice for drones, since the copter can move in any direction. Patch antennas, on the other hand, concentrate their reception signal on a specific sector and are particularly suitable for receivers on the ground or in video goggles when you want to maximize range in a preferred direction. Many experienced pilots rely on a diversity receiver system that combines both antenna types and automatically selects the better signal source.
At FPV24, you’ll find 5.8 GHz and dual-band FPV antennas from brands such as iFlight, TBS, TrueRC, Menace, Foxeer, Lumenier, GEPRC, FlyFishRC, Axisflying, and Walksnail—in all standard connector formats such as SMA, RP-SMA, uFL, MMCX, and polarizations.
