Internal antenna issue??

[Shawn Billings]

Output power is low. Really low. Needs to be 1000.

 

[Bill Eggers]

Here is radio status screens for internal, then external antenna.
Then screen shots of collect screen for internal and external.

 

[Shawn Billings]

That's strange. Your internal antenna is showing better received signal strength (RSSI) than the external. The values for both seem very low to me also considering you are next to the base, provided that the base is transmitting at 1000(30) and not the 30(15) your previous screen captures were showing.

The satellite count is pretty poor too, but perhaps you just set it up in the office or next to the office for the screen captures?? Or is this in a good environment?

 

[Bill Eggers]

Yes, these are after changing to 1000(30) and the satellite reception is at my desk.

 

[Shawn Billings]

@Vladimir Zhukov what do you suggest we do to help Mr. Eggers?

Bill do you have a Triumph-LS user nearby with FHSS?

 

[Bill Eggers]

The only user I know of is Jim White, about 1.5 hour from me. I don't know if he uses FHSS
Duane Frymire is next nearest that I know of.

 

[jack newsome]

Not exactly on topic, but, What is required to power the 401 radio from an external source? Can the alligator clip cord and a lawn mower/motorcycle type battery be used safely?
Thanks

 

[Shawn Billings]

Not exactly on topic, but, What is required to power the 401 radio from an external source? Can the alligator clip cord and a lawn mower/motorcycle type battery be used safely?
Thanks

Yea

 

[Matt Johnson]

Yes, these are after changing to 1000(30) and the satellite reception is at my desk.

The problems you had appeared to be with the output power being too low. Also it is not reasonable to check the RSSI with only 4' between the transmitter and receiver. If you want to check the radio, measure the RSSI at 100' between the radio at full power and LS with both internal and external antennas. The internal antenna on the back of the LS should be facing the radio.

 

[Matt Johnson]

What is required to power the 401 radio from an external source? Can the alligator clip cord and a lawn mower/motorcycle type battery be used safely?

Any 12 volt battery will work but it should be a deep cycle battery, otherwise the battery will not last many cycles.

 

[Bill Eggers]

The problems you had appeared to be with the output power being too low. Also it is not reasonable to check the RSSI with only 4' between the transmitter and receiver. If you want to check the radio, measure the RSSI at 100' between the radio at full power and LS with both internal and external antennas. The internal antenna on the back of the LS should be facing the radio.

It seems to be a problem with the external antenna on the LS. Range on the internal is about what we expect, but when that is exceeded and switch to external there is no corresponding increase in range.
This worked fine last week before I updated the LS software.

 

[Matt Johnson]

You need to check and compare the RSSI values at 100’ to diagnose if there really is a problem. If the radio range is being limited by a terrain obstruction, switching to the external antenna likely won’t provide much increased range.

 

[Bill Eggers]

I went out and took screen shots of the radio status using internal and external antenna at increasing distances from 380' to over 800'. Could not get radio beyond that point and terrain should not have been a problem, although I was getting more in the way of tree obstructions
Looks to me like the results are very close for internal and external.

 

[Bill Eggers]

Maybe the external antenna (868-928 MHz) pn 30-597162-01 is bad?

 

[Adam]

After upgrading software a few days ago, we are having significantly diminished radio range. This is running a TR2 base with the HPT401BT radio.
We generally use the external antenna on the TLS, but even using the external antenna now only gets us 700' range over level ground.
Using the switch from internal to external does not seem to make any significant difference in the RSSI value, so perhaps it is the switch not working.
Any ideas?

Curious if you updated the base and radio as well? It's worth a try if not.

 

[Adam]

Maybe the external antenna (868-928 MHz) pn 30-597162-01 is bad?

I don't think so. The internal screenshot shows similar BER to the external.

 

[Bill Eggers]

HI Adam,
It was suggested that I update the radio, but I could not get Netview and Modem to recognize the radio connected to serial port on my pc.

 

[Bill Eggers]

The performance of the radio is about what I would expect using the internal radio, but there seems no advantage now when switching to the external.
There were some comments earlier in this thread about the switch failing.

 

[Adam]

800' and a link quality of 90 percent is what you would expect? The fhss should go well beyond 800' before it starts degrading unless the terrain is blocking the radio signal

 

[Vladimir Zhukov]

Hello Bill, please advise the J-Field version you are running on the board of TRIUMPH-LS now. We will doublecheck if switching between internal and external antennas works properly in this version.