Testing a fistful of 5.8Ghz FPV Antennas - which has the best VSWR?

A huge thank you to Greg at MenaceRC for testing these antennas for me. You can check out his excellent range of FPV antennas and other technology at menacerc.co.uk/
VSWR is a key indicator of how well an antenna is tuned and at what frequencies it's best performance will be. However, there are other considerations of antenna performance that it doesn't take into account. See the other videos in the FPV antenna lab series for more detail.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the video. You can find me on social media at / painless360 and / painless360
Want to support the work I do here creating content and answering questions? Please consider subscribing and supporting the channel by visiting / painless360 or you can support me by donating using paypal.me/painless360. Where-ever you can support your local R.C resellers and shops. They need your support more than ever.
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LIKE and SUBSCRIBE and above all - Happy Flying!

[@frasersteen]

Did you hear about the 2 antennas that got married? The service was pretty dull but the reception was excellent.

[@HDgodfrey]

OMG, I love that. I hope I'm not the only lover of corny jokes!

[@fpfree8821]

Dad.....is that you? Brilliant!

[@kituschownus4335]

I just spat out my drink

[@brubakerjm]

The bride was positively radiating but the groom's speech was somewhat polarizing...

[@frasersteen]

@@brubakerjm nice. 5 star follow up

[@pav2k]

Amazing!! Would love to see more antenna tests and consistency between the same antennas!

[@HDgodfrey]

Your so good! Cracked me up seeing that uncovered clover leaf. That's all I had to start and one crash the elements bent and it was over. Great content as always!

[@mariofpv]

Thank you for all the test results! They were very helpful! Finding the right antenna can be very tricky with so many options out there!

[@awakenedfpv5640]

You always have great timing, Ive just been looking for new antennas.

[@fuupdaass275]

What did you get

[@jjab99]

Another great video, please keep them coming. Take care and stay safe, Joe

[@MCsCreations]

Pretty interesting results, Lee! Thanks a lot! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@hueyvelcro3025]

Cracking video sir . I wish there were more like it out there . Im still using the original TBS Triumphs on quads and wings but wanting to try some of the new antennas and more information like this would make my changover much less expensive and time consuming . I have always flown on R1 which is very low down and as there are quite a few in our group now I cant really change without messing up how we fly together . Time to go trawling tinternet to see if theres anything similar showing where the Triumph performs best as a baseline . I really enjoyed that , very informative .

[@johnk8825]

Very enlightening, thanks Lee

[@pbshooter100]

Great video with some really useful info! I'd like to see you do another round of testing just like this but this time use fresh out of the box antennas from the major sellers e.g. foxeer, lumenier, etc

[@camalexander8843]

So nice to see actual data

[@Painless360]

Check the other videos in the series, you may find them interesting... Best of luck

[@typxxilps]

lot of work I guess to get this explained so well ... thanks a lot

[@MadRC]

Fantastic video this, would love the gear to measure this my self as a gear head. Really interesting to see the differences.

[@AIfpv]

very helpful! big thanks!

[@tubamanandy2]

Really informative - thank you

[@NATGEOANDSTUFFPaulbrannan]

Great test Lee thankyou.stay safe my friend

[@orvofpv]

Great video, as usual, thanks. Would have loved to see the AeroPOD tested as well.

[@Painless360]

Same as the thrasher

[@missiletm]

Great content as always! It woulda been cool to see the VSWR of a monopole stick as a comparison.

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series.. Happy flying

[@brianfreland9065]

Thank you for the video. I just ordered new goggles and I know nothing about radio frequency. At the very least, now I know a menace pagoda and patch antenna will serve me well. Cheers, mate!

[@Painless360]

Check out my FPV for beginners playlist.. Happy flying!

[@h2o-fpv623]

Great video thank u.

[@licensetodrive9930]

Great timing, I'm looking for an alternative to the Foxeer Lollipop because it breaks way too easily. I'm getting a great picture quality from them and so are my friends, we're running Shark Byte on TinyTrainers, but the active element is very weak and snaps after too many crashes. After a very light crash on grass yesterday the signal was ruined on mine, gave the antenna a little shake and it was rattling, ripped it open when I got home and found the main lobe had snapped off and was loose! I'm not the only one to experience this, happened to two of my friend's Foxeer Lollipops just recently and I found a video from nearly 2 years ago titled "Foxeer Lollipop Rattling?" with exactly the same issue. So no more Lollipop's for me.

[@aowi7280]

I took a wander around the labs at work (RF supplies) an found out of ~a dozen signal analyzers that only 1 would go to 6GHz. And that guy would not let me touch it. Its really hard to get the right equipment to check this stuff. Great job on the testing.

[@FlyturboKwad]

In Canada we say "A handful". Am not sure about "Fistful" you may attract wrong viewers. Great informational video, will surely reference it for my next purchase.

[@va3dxv]

Good to see someone doing this. But VSWR doesn't tell you anything about the performance of the antenna. It just tells you the transmitter sees it as a matched load. A dummy load will outperform all those antennas if you go by this measurement. You need to measure resonance, reactance and field strength.

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series. Sounds like you may find them interesting. Happy flying!

[@michalp.4975]

Interesting results. Not always more expensive means better :)

[@pilotmiami1]

Bravo.thenks

[@Rcschim]

Very interesting measurements! Do you think the vswr measure is the most critical about an antenna? Would be an easier way of measuring than my practical tests with an spectrometer and actually transmitting 1mw over 10m... I used right the 5800 frequ for my tests however, so antennas with a good vswr there sure performed better than others...

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series. Sounds like you may find them interesting. Happy flying!

[@hanelyp1]

A low VSWR means RF energy is coupled efficiently into the antenna. Where it goes from there is not answered by this test. A dummy load delivers close to a 1:1 VSWR across the band.

[@WinstonSmith1984]

Thanks. I missed the unbranded Mini Pagoda Antenna that BG sells though which is interesting these days with ever smaller quadcopters. I have a suspicion that they're the same design as the Speedy Bee antenna.

[@pavelkurnosov251]

Speedybee is nothing like pagoda inside, it's made (and fails!) the same way as all of them cheap cirpol antennas - copper lobes inside of glued plastic shell. I killed two already, top solder joint just fails because it's too small but must hold weight of active element. Even lollipops survived for longer for me...

[@100SteveB]

Oh those old clover leaf antennas were awful things out of the box, let alone once you had bent it a couple of times! I like these comparison videos, getting to see some figures on performance. Would it be possible in future to see some of the lighter antennas - those with much thinner coax and the MMCX or UFL connectors. So many of my vtx's these days have the smaller and lighter connectors, and would love to know if they, along with the thinner coax cause any noticeable loss or tuning issues. I ask because other than the aeropod, Menace does not supply any antennas with the smaller and lighter connection options. I was wondering if their was a performance issue that swayed their decision not to stock them. I used to use a lot of menace rc antennas, but have moved away from them because of the lack of MMCX and UFL connected antennas. I know you can get adaptors, but they add weight.

[@timothyhighstone9300]

Good stuff

[@sunsetpark_fpv]

Great video - I would love to see more tests like this one. Let's weed through the rubbish, with real test results. I'm also curious about whether you might have just wound up with a "dud" antenna from any of those that were tested....I would love to see the results from a good/bad antenna replicated consistently over multiples of the same antenna .... I am in the process of trying to learn how to clean up my video signal. Thank you for this video!

[@Painless360]

Thanks for the comment. Check out the FPV playlist as I have a few videos on cleaning up analogue FPV... Happy flying

[@robbinvanhoek121]

Thanks for the work :) I'm interested in the foxeer lollipops. I have one of the 'larger' ones on my drones, and two stubbies on my goggles. Would it be reasonable to assume that the stubbies have a similar trace to the one from the video?

[@vanguard6937]

No, and anything next to these antennas can cause them to be detuned. Different cable lengths can also have different readings too

[@jocasimoes2222]

Thanks👍👍

[@nersfpv69]

What is the best antenna hgrlc hammer vs iflight albatross vs flywoo atomic ?

[@kaskalo2]

Does this mean that if we get some of those antennas, we should set the channel to match that "central frequency"? And in that case would it make sense to take 2 of them - one for quad and one for goggles?

[@Painless360]

Not really. A well tuned antenna will perform well over all the channels... Happy flying

[@dogswhistlesharam9029]

Speaking from the amateur radio community, we strive to get a SWR below 1:5 ( doesn’t always happen) But I have been horrified a few years ago by various flattened 5.8Ghz antennas from Banggood that arrive in a flimsy grey unpadded plastic bag ,(a box would be sensible) Definately going over to PCB type antennas like menace RC is the way to go to get a repeatable SWR when making antennas in high numbers.( plus Banggood a packaging doesn’t destroy them!)

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series. Sounds like you may find them interesting. Happy flying!

[@Flamenawer]

They should make the test to know if a RHCP antenna, catch signal from a emitting LHCP antenna. So important as the SWR.

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series.. Happy flying

[@kafie1980]

Great video but Sad to see so many off the shelf antennas are designed without these basic tests to ensure maximum signal strength/performance.

[@mitchellroberts7954]

Vswr is just one part of the equation ;)

[@hspeed3656]

Great video Lee. Have you had any testing done on a antenna to see the impact of the 90 or straight through adapter? I notice you did mention the 90 adapter but no data on the amount of impact. Have a great day Jeff

[@Painless360]

I do - in the series.

[@vanguard6937]

Video aerial systems also has one on their KZbin channel too

[@Bill-NM]

Nice video - I wonder how a dipole would have compared, just out of curiosity. And how do these VSWR numbers and differences play out in the real world? And at what distances?

[@hanelyp1]

A dipole, depending on parameters, could perform very well by the measure of this test. With a 3dB signal loss working against a good circularly polarized antenna at the other end.

[@TailSpinRCSpain]

I have the Foxeer tall on my goggles, rises above my head, great for flying behind me.

[@michaelmccarroll4202]

I'm assuming these are receiver antennas do they work the same for the transmitter side of it. And any data on the directional strength of each antenna. I know I'm asking for a lot. So Far you've done a great job.

[@Painless360]

It sounds like you might enjoy the rest of the series. Best of luck

[@Retset]

I've still got some of those metal cloverleaf things. I had no idea they were pants!

[@Painless360]

The AOMWAY ones are good. See the other testing in the series.. Happy flying

[@Retset]

@@Painless360 Ah, I see. Went back and watched. I have some of those Fatshark ones and they were very good. Most of my recent antenna's have been pagoda and I'll stick with them in future.

[@ZenderStuzer]

If you are buying pagoda antenna, make sure it's with plastic braces - then the top and bottom pcbs are aligned and more or less in tune. Worth to mention, that the smaller antenna is - the more vswr depends on the suroundings. You can ruin your vswr and radiation patern by placing your antenna near battery, metal objects, cables, other antennas, etc. Would be actualy interesting to see differences between stub antenna performance on the bench vs on the drone.

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the Antenna Lab series where we look at that.. Happy flying!

[@henkvanulden4151]

Unfortunately, the VSWR does not say if an antenna is working okay (radiation/gain) but it tells whether the impedance is 50 ohms. If you measure a dummy load, it gives a perfect VSWR but there is no radiation.

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series.. Happy flying

[@budgetwebsiteservice]

Did you do this test on that little (can't for the life of me remember it's name) dome style antenna that sits flush on the aircraft fuselage??

[@Painless360]

Not in this test but the Aeropod has a similar trace to the thrasher. See my video on that.

[@budgetwebsiteservice]

@@Painless360 Ah okay excellent, I've probably already seen that one but I'll have another look cos my memory is so crap lol...

[@khangweak]

The video is great sir , but could you give me advice that what antenna should i use ? Because i use the VRX ROTG01 so it only has one antenna module to only attach one antenna so should use the Pagoda PCB 5dBi antenna ?

[@Painless360]

If there is only one antenna then I would use an omni-directional antenna for general flying. Something like the MenaceRC Pagodas are great!

[@khangweak]

@@Painless360 Thanks you very much sir ,i have thought about if some omnidirectional antennas like pagoda or lolipop is fit for general RC flying but til that time i just assume that so really thanks you ,wish you a good day sir 😊 .

[@khangweak]

@@Painless360 Thank you for the your help Sir the last time i asked you about VRX antenna for general flying and that help me a lot, but i forgot to ask you about antenna (general flying) for VTx . Yesterday i bought a Foxeer Mini TM25 25mW VTx ,i hope you could help me once again .

[@Painless360]

Depends on the connector that VTX unit has, SMA, UFL or SMA. You need to find what it has and order a omnidirectional antenna with the same connector. See my other FPV basics videos..

[@seba2038]

is it possible to mount antena in the way you do not have it beside your head, like mount it on a stick 2 meter away from me and then connect with googles?

[@Painless360]

Using an omni-directional antenna that is tall enough to clear your head usually means that you'll get a decent reception from all points around you as you fly. As the antenna on the goggles doesn't transmit anything then there any danger of the radiation. Check out how those pilots using antenna trackers fly - may be more inline with what you are looking at..

[@seba2038]

@@Painless360 thank you! So you mean that googles are just receiving signal and do not emit any radiation, like the RC transmitter does?

[@Painless360]

Correct. They don't send out a signal (unless you have a fancy module that has things like WiFi and Bluetooth and you've turned those on ;) )

[@Gosuminer]

Very surprising that the sensitivity is good for almost all antennas but the manufacturers don't seem to have good control over the tune.

[@Flamenawer]

Yeah it's quite weird some antenas has 1.2swr just a little before FPV range. Weird, I'm not sure if the SA or some adapter is out of calibration.

[@artifixprime]

If you had, say, one good antenna - would it matter if you used it on your drone or goggles to get the most out of it? - i.e. use it for transmission or reception, or does it not make a difference?

[@vanguard6937]

Makes no difference, but id put it on the goggles so it wouldnt brake in the event of a crash

[@djsolstice8964]

All I have is old school clover leaf😂😂😂, that explains a lot. Thanks, its buying time.

[@BreeZieDoesiT]

His is there a difference between a vtx or vrx antenna and a goggle antenna?. Im having trouble purchasing since im not sure if they are all universal

[@Painless360]

Universal. But things like the MenaceRC AeroPOD are model only... Happy flying

[@BreeZieDoesiT]

@Painless360 thanks very much for replying. It's these little things that make getting into the hobby tough because even websites that break things down great, even these little things fail to get mentioned so thanks for clearing it up!

[@Painless360]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6jZho2eqcyLq9E :D

[@grabejud]

i feel bad when i look at the AXII antenna which i just recently bought. now i feel like getting a cheapo swr meter just to confirm that its around Band E ch4 (lowest)

[@Painless360]

Remember that these tests are of a single antenna so can't be taken as the expected performance of all of that type.. Best of luck

[@grabejud]

@@Painless360 i guess i ill have to real-world test by flying it thru the bands.

[@herpderpula7296]

Farvew..please? I've flown 20mi+ on a farvew pagoda and farvew 7t helical with ~1w output power or ~26-28dbm measured apparent power with the immersion rc rf meter. Need more Maarten Baert goodness :)

[@briancrick935]

Will you be doing a test for 1.2/1.3

[@Painless360]

It's not something I have a lot of kit for..

[@briancrick935]

@@Painless360 is the concept the same

[@Painless360]

The testing would be the same, VSWR isn't unique to FPV antennas - it's a standard measurement for any antennas to see how well it is matched to the transmitter for maximum propagation and minimal reflections that could harm the transmission electronics.

[@nivasylstrongman4352]

ok, what antenna do you recommend?

[@Painless360]

I use MenaceRC stuffed here...

[@mabbs2757]

Morning Lee do you ever sleep lol

[@Timber81]

Guess the coat hanger wire is getting an upgrade

[@Painless360]

:D

[@jas-FPV]

Could you do an update ???????

[@Painless360]

With which antennas ???????

[@jas-FPV]

@@Painless360 Maybe everything LHCP Including Walksnail and DJI Stock antennas. Also the Cherry2 and Flyfishrc that are quite new I think a focus on HD would be great

[@vanguard6937]

May want to check out some VAS antennas. All of them are tested and manufactured in the US. And like others have said, vswr is just a very small slice of the pie of antenna performance

[@YuriuSSS]

very wide frequency range of this measuring tool so it is not comfortable to see the exact difference between low, mid and high 5.8G band

[@Painless360]

Check out the other videos in the series.. happy flying!

[@pseeds3609]

OwlRC SWR Meter

[@LimitlesssSky]

you must be a mind reader. i was in the market for new antennas

[@bugsy742]

Same😅

[@DronePlayground]

😱👍👀🇭🇷

[@twinturbostang]

Surprising how bad the "old school" antennas are!

[@user-dd5gi2yg2c]

Hello. Please translate all the videos into Arabic because I am a follower of you and subscribers. Thank you very much.

[@Painless360]

Happy to add Arabic subtitles if you want to send them to me. Happy flying!