A Warning r.e. the Taranis Antenna Mod

If it's not broke don't fix it is. Thanks Joshua

Next time, try changing the antenna first, if you didn't

Joshua Bardwell

If you have not tried getting a new antenna, try that, and tell me if it worked.

Joshua Bardwell

Ooh! I forgot something.. my solder station isnt esd safe.. most of us have cheap 100$ station or even much cheaper solder irons. I can bet my left ball that it could be using a none esd solder station.

Me too. I do see a lot of comments on Banggood of people suspecting to receive second hand RF boards from BG as the antenna pads look desoldered. Mine were too and maybe I received a dud by chance. Thinking about ordering one more board for science, although this Taranis is becoming an expensive liability.

It's scheduled for release this morning. Once I schedule it, it goes private until it releases.

Joshua Bardwell

Unable to view video, says it's private

Mike Kraus

Well I've tested with 3 rp-sma cables.. so it can't be the pin.

I forgot to say.. i used a static strap.. Also I've redone the solder job. I again cut a new cable 84mm the signal wire 1mm and have about 1mm space from the shield. this time i got it flush. And guess what? The damn RSSI signal is still below average. I see that people here only get 200m before warning of rssi. this is exactly the same distance i get. I loose telemetry also every now and then. I have a metal gate i couldn't pass last week but after my rework today it seems that it passed that test.. or it was probably just luck. Last week I did a short loop and my quad just died.. nearly crapped my pants because it wasn't far away from me.. I never had a failsafe on this quad before so my suspicion is the antenna mod. As I said before Im pretty good with the solder iron and know how to do it and I did all the research.

Yes, that could damage the Taranis. But I assure you I have never done that.

Joshua Bardwell

Do you have any idea as to why the cable lenghth would matter? I totally get why the length of the dipole should correlate to the correct wavelength, but the pigtail? Thanks for diving into this and correcting your stance on the whole modding subject, yay science!

also, what is the possibility of it being because it was powered up without antenna. would that have the same effect of powering up a vtx without antenna. or does the tarannis see that nothing is connected and stops the power transfer to the amplifier?

thanks a lot for the heads up. I've had a few friends that were curing and swearing at their taranis lately because they have been getting a lot of failsafes and drop outs. and int he past few days i've noticed a range drop off which I was contributing to something else. but this is becoming a solid possibility when i look at the trend. mucha ppreciate this, and all of your information, good news or bad.

I think that static is the only possible explanation, since the issue is even happening to people who get the cable length correct.

Joshua Bardwell

I'm surprised that you didn't see any improvement after replacing the RF board.

Joshua Bardwell

I have the dreaded "SWR looks good but RSSI is crap" issue after the mod. Pretty sure my soldering is on point though. I did the mod exactly like you did Josh, even taking care of the IBCrazy suggested pigtail length. Right after the mod, I had a +10RSSI on a range test comparison to stock, so I was stoked. After a few days I noticed a drop in RSSI and failsafes at 200m while flying. I put the stock Taranis antenna back, and even flashed my Taranis to the original firmware, but no improvements in RSSI. Last week I decided to replace the board in the Taranis, and saw an improvement in RSSI, although not as good as I had before the mod. Right now the RSSI has again dropped to a point where flying is only possible in short range of about 200m. I see no cause for the issue and consider replacing the Taranis or buying a TBS module. I hope you can convince FrSky to look into this issue. I know mods void warranty, but an explanation would greatly benefit their community.

Some antennas do not come well mounted on the central SMA pin. But you can not see until one day you see that the pin moves and that should not be right.

Lucky me I have waited with this mod. Parts are already on the bench! Ordered now a XJT module.

thank you thank you for the sincerely honest video - very sad though... bummer.

Actually I've read at a rcplane site that they recommended not to do the internal xjt 5 dbi mod.. they recommended to buy an external xjt module and place the 5 dbi antenna there.. I don't know if there is any latency on having a module though. on the site they mentioned that the small signal pad could get damaged and over time fail.. this was even if you where a skilled with solder. People say I'm pretty skilled but I've seem to messed up.. and time will tell if it will fail. i got worse rssi signal then before the mod.

I cut rg316 to 84mm as IBcrazy shows.. my range has got worse.. and slowly gets worser. What I've read is that you can damage the pads without knowing it.. my swr is 0-1.. and if i unscrew the antenna a bit it raises.. so swr is correct. but rssi test my radio is much worse.. and the rssi doesn't seem linear. I bought a new taranis special edition.. and did compare the radios. Did test in range mode.. at first the both radios has the same RSSI.. but the further i walk away from the XSR receivers the 5 dpi moded taranis shows 20-30 RSSI less than the new taranis that has a 2 DBI antenna. The moded taranis gets down to 35 dbi pretty fast while the new 2dbi taranis can go much farther before i get into very low rssi.. The 5dbi mod taranis just loose signal completely after 35dbi. The rg316 is a hard cable to solder.. you have a hard time getting the signal wire flush to the signal pad.. I've seen people do a slight bend on the end.. by doing this you can also get a signal loss (as I've read) I did this little bend so my signal wire could reach the signal pad. I'm now going to resolder to see if it will fix the problem ( i just had to wait for my new radio to arrive). If this doesn't fix it i do believe that the signal pad on the board might have been damaged the first time i did the mod. As i read.. it won't be noticed at first but over time and then fail completely. I have been spending an hour trying to find this website where I read all this but can't find it again.. If I do find it again I will post the address here... What they said there was to not do the internal 5dbi mod.. They recommended to buy an external xjt module and place the 5dbi antenna there.

I had this problem. Finally I've send my pressious Taranis to service and they exchange radio module. That was expensive lesson.

time for an evolution : )

I'd say it's optional, especially if you fly all telemetry receivers, just turn back when the radio starts yelling at you. That being said, if you accidentally rip your stock antenna off, then it's less optional

I wonder what's kind of performance you'd get from an XJT module with a 5db antenna? Maybe that's like a 5db mod for those of us who are bad at soldering. 😉

Is that MOD absolutely neccessary or stock is good to go as steele video has a captions "must have Mod"..

I'm sure you don't have to worry about a factory mod.

Joshua Bardwell

I have the new special edition taranis w 5dbi already done from factory on the way... think i should be concerned? Will talk to the engineers @ work and report back...

Random FPV

Cutting to length was the only thing I didn't do. I hadn't seen that recommendation until Steele's video.

Joshua Bardwell

I've done this mod but I used a heavier coax (RG 316 I believe) and I also cut the coax to a certain length as to nullify the impeadance. I haven't had any issues so far. Guess I gotta keep my fingers crossed. Lol