smee204

My antenna got cut in a crash by the blades so had to replace it, so used some new wire. The wire was the same length but just thicker. My range without glitchs now, with the radio antenna fully extended and antenna on rc jabo2 straight or coiled round something is about 5 meters. With the radio antenna right down range is less than a meter. Please help me!!! i have a jabo 2 micro heli 35mhz in the UK.


Thanks

KawaKattacK2000

My Feedback: (10)

You must use the same length, and guage wire for the antenna, also it sounds to me like when it was pulled from the reciever, it may have ripped out of its spot on the board of the reciever...open the casing, and make sure the antenna is still soldered in its place.

Pops Racer

My Feedback: (1)

Alot of people will just splice in a piece to repair the cut/broken antenna wire. This can lead to range problems if the wire is different in gauge or total length. Also a splice that is not insulated could be grounding out on some CF or metal part(s) causing your problem.
Best to completely replace the antenna wire with a NEW piece of the correct spec, by soldering to the board.

Consider that a crash severe enough for the blades to strike the antenna wire close to the RX, may have damaged the RX or it's crystal.

VinceHerman

I could be wrong, but I don't think that the guage of wire is relevant. We often replaced the stock wire with a single strand of magnet wire to save weight on the light electric planes.
Another possible solution is to use an aftermarket base loaded antenna - something like this:
http://www.deeteeenterprises.com/NS....o.Antennas.php
make sure to find one that is designed for your frequency band

smee204

the wire ive used is a different thickness wire but same length. also i think my original wire was stranded wire whereas i have replaced it with a solid one, would this effect it? Also what does this mean? do i need to buy a new one. is it expensive? Can it be damaged even though i can still communicate with heli, just very low range?

sorry about all the questions just ive tried loads of stuff to mend it.
thanks

Pops Racer

My Feedback: (1)

I think Vince is probably right about the wire gauge.
The few times I've had to replace one, I just bought some antenna wire from a Hobby Shop, cut it to the same length as the original antenna and soldered it to the RX circuit board.

I've crashed plenty of r/c vehicles and aircraft in my lifetime. Most of the time the RX or crystal will be fine, but sometimes even what seems like a minor incident can damage one of them. Either will cause loss of control at anything more than very close range.
I actually had a receiver go bad in an airplane that I had hanging from the rafters in my garage for a few months.

Really the only way to be sure is to have it checked out by an expert. That or compare your equipment with known to be working units. Can get expensive fast if you just randomly start replacing parts to find the problem.

smee204

Ok. think i will get some antenna wire and use that and if that doesent work, i will have to get a second job.

thanks

smee204

right put a new antenna wire on it and the range is fine just now I have a 80cm long bit of wire to put somewhere. Tried wrapping it round a pencil but range decreased too much.

any ideas???

thanks

smee

3DPRO

just go buy a micro whip antenna for about 15 bucks and be done with it. when you get the micro whip antenna the instructions tell you to cut the old antenna to about an inch long any way, so if you still have that much left you can install the whip antenna with no problems.




thanks Chris


ps check out the pic of mine that is what the whip antenna looks like. the antenna is mounted to the lft skid.

smee204

yer i tried but i couldnt find one for 35mhz as im in the UK

3DPRO

I SEE YOU MIGHT TRY A COUPLE OF WEB SIGHTS SUCH AS HOBBYPEOPLE.NET OR TEDANI.COM, OR DEETEENTERPRISES.COM YOU MIGHT FIND ONE ON THESE WEB SIGHTS.



GOODLUCK, CHRIS

tnd2000

No guage doesn't matter. But you need to use stranded wire instead of solids. On the heli, the antenna tend to get warped, bend alot. With solid wire, it'll break in the middle and you wont' even know it.
Also if you wrap/wound it around anything, the range will be reduced. Wrap it on a pencil is bad because you are basicaly wrapping it around a 'lead' pipe.