DJI O3 FPV RF Deep Dive On RC, Antennas & Dual Band - Did DJI Fix The Issues 

Just further to this video I have seen a number of comments around that if you turn off the goggles you still loose the RC link. Yes this is correct. O3 is still a networked setup and the goggles communicate with the RC even when the goggle is not receiving video signal. Turning off the goggles is not the same as loosing signal on the goggles. The DJI Remote system still has some behaviour that is not quite the same as a fully standalone system.

Good stuff! Thanks for digging into all this. 👍👍

Fantastic testing, Ian! Thanks a bunch! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Thanks a ton Ian! Please please keep doing what you're doing.

Great video thanks for in depth testing

Thank you Ian. I didn’t know there is an update for 03. I count on you and your tests and info. That is why I scrolled down until I found your latest video before looking at anything else……greatly appreciated 👌👍👍

Thanks dor the great description on antenna choices, I was confused till now

Thanks for testing. Awesome work. 👍

Spectran V6 FTW! Informative vid, thanks.

Was curious about the hdzero hype. Watched your video on it and I thought it was very well done. New subscriber

That’s clear, thanks !

As someone who is brand new to the hobby and already 2 rc2's in, this video was so helpful! Literally helped me so much I was compelled to buy you a coffee. Thank you for the awesome effort!!

I got this controller for Christmas I’m glad they updated! I’m gonna get an o3 quad soon I can’t wait to see what the hype is about! Using my old school dji mode 2 controller now!😅 thanks for the great info I appreciate it!

Thank you.

DJI is watching this and learning alot from you 😁

Regarding dual band antennas, worth keeping in mind that they are a compromise. They will usually if not always have worse performance in both bands than a single band antenna, which would have great perromance in one band and terrible performance in the other. So then would the best performance actually be to manually lock channel to 5 GHz and use single band 5 GHz antennas?

Excellent analysis… AS ALWAYS! Thank you. Btw - We are currently looking into using some of our older and previously allocated public safety “T-Band” UHF frequencies for RC control and video retransmission. (470.0000 - 520.0000 MHz) Our current license is for: 8 freq pairs / 50 watts mobile / 100 watts base and repeaters ) Analog voice Digital voice (DMR/TDMA & P25) It seems t

muchas gracias por la informacion

Thanks for an amazing review, Ian! Could you please tell what's the Googles and RC2 Telemetry that gets transferred to the O3 air unit over 2.4Ghz?

lol, first to comment! Just installed this on my new build! You explained this very well, you the man!

Thanks Mads! Is this behaviour the same on the Avata as well? Cheers

Would be interested to see the interference test with some of the DJI "boring drone" series. I say that because I had a friend flying an Air 2S the other day and when I booted up my O3 and armed it completely knocked out their video link. The O3 worked fine, but the Air 2S was flying blind (frozen picture) until I landed and disarmed.

Man I really was hoping this was going to work, I have the dji FpV Goggles 2 and the FPV remote 2, and really was hoping to get into digital with nice easy bind up systems. Maybe it will be better by time I can afford it.

Hey thank you for the deep dive. Do you recall a company that was using 2.4 and 5.8 antennas, with the theory that they bounce off another. Would there be any performance benefits by trying that system with the dji controller?

hi congratulations for the video well done ☺️. i put it in fcc and everything works .( unit o3 , dji controller2, google v2) . the radio signal picks up very well but the one from the glasses (icon hd) doesn't work very well behind the trees. has this ever happened to you?

Another unbelivable good invastigation from mads tech that is helping the whole fpv community. Thank you so much for it!! I am very intrested in your expert opinion on useing iflight patches on the v2 goggles for the avata. Im leaning toward it for increasing the 5.8 GHz range but at the expense of being unanble to use the 2.4 GHz link during Signal loss since the avata could enter in rth or hover Mode in this case. What du you think?

Honestly, I am pretty impressed with how O3 is handling the band during interference. I know how many people had a hard time with the older system and RF management when multiple pilots are in the air, but this does all of the heavy lifting for you! Just being able to leave it on auto, keep some distance between pilots, and let the system do what it does is a huge step forward.

what spectrum analyser do you use?

Does it matter what ports the stock antenna wire pins are attached to on the O3 air unit? When installing the O3 air unit and stock antenna I wasn't sure what wire pins went to what ports or if there was a difference.

Does analog video also trigger the O3 system to adjust?

That firmware update isn't the one that adds remote ID on dji drones like the avata?

Do you have to rebind all of your quads once you update?

It wasn't mentioned but I assume that the Goggles V2 will behave exactly the same as the Goggles 2 when used with the DJI remote controller and video is lost so not causing a fail safe?

I’ve had so many issues with the DJI remote 2. During yaw movements the throttle would jump, it caused this weird motor skipping in another build. It’s been extremely problematic for me. As soon as I installed crossfire on my builds everything was great. For me the fpv remote 2 was unusable. Some people have used it with success so experiences vary. For now though I wouldn’t trust that rc link.

Great video, thank you so much! Does this also work on the Goggles V2 or only on the Goggles 2?

Must be a high workload doing this while HDZero system might be waiting to for new videos and with a lot more opportunities than the old dji stuff even though I am just one of those old dji only guys. Therefore I wonder and appreciate even more the time , effort and priorities you still invest on dji topics even though dji more or less seem to ignore you unless you raise your voice for a strong shout 'do not buy' followed by a more or less 'at least right now' I know you are not using that for clickbait / views and that you take an awfull lot into account before some like "do not buy" warning happens which I appreciate a lot cause it is a clear and strong voice that can not be overheard in such moments where others do more care about the whole affiliate stuff and impact on that. Independent and unique voice what ever other fan boys might say even though I am still a dji fan and would still consider to call myself a boy but not a dji fan boy cause I still critise dji a lot for being unreal, fooling the public, not being straight for all these years. How could it have happened that they ever released the goggles racing edition, those red outdated ones that still work flawlessly with the Mavic 2 series , head tracking and even old analog vtx out of the box without any problems. Since then a lot has changed and the product life cycle managed by dji looks like bavarian kingdom or a german Kaiserreich cause it is their decision to spend a drone the knight award to support the dji goggles 2 or however they are called. It increases or decreases the value of such a drone but it is not predictable which drone will be supported and which not. Quite a long comment just to please the algorithm god powered by youtube but maybe even DJI has learned and improved to monitor the comments on your videos to listen a bit better to what their customer say. Right now I have 3, no , even 4 and maybe another dji drone in my hangar from Mavic 2 over Mini 2 and I guess Mini 3 pro cause I had bought a lot for cheap just to keep in touch with the newer ones which I will flip again when the season starts, demands increases and prices on used market will be good again. You need to finance such expensive hobby and part of that is having the knowledge when to buy what and when to buy not, which I emphasize for the fact that dji was not able to sell a new dji drone to me since 2018 that I buy and use, not only buy to fly and sell again. Which means I never consider to have had a Spark, mini, mini 2 or even mini 3 cause I bought them and flew those not more than 3 times before I sold them again. And if dji would check my account they would see a dozens of dji mini what ever but only flown for just 3 times as a kind reminder that this must have been a disappointed customers and that something did not went right. ANd it will take a lot of effort to unsolve such puzzle based on the pure facts of a customer with a new drone and 3 flights only before it has been sold or given away to someone else far away - except Mavic 2 pro. And obviously I do not use this account I use on youtube. Maybe 2023 will the first year I will buy a drone from a dji competitor for more than 7 years and even fly that (cause I also had bought all the xiaomi and fimi drones before, just to flip them again). But since 2015 my main drone had been a dji MAVIC * which then stayed for years not for months. Great channel, great works and a strong genuine loud voice about the hobby and not the lobbyism. Hope you will make the 36666 milestone soon cause it is still a 2/3 milestone of the next 10k to 40k and therefore I like these milestones far more than the usual easy ones like 35k cause the smaller ones are those you can survive far better the times with slower progress and if you celebrate those it is still a unique stream worth to remembered. Do you remember the 12.500 sub live stream ? I guess not really but I still do cause it felt like a hangover with changing subs all the time and no happy end cause subs fooled and unsubscribed to subscribe later. But still worth to remember and just less than 3 years ago if I am right - eastern 2020 I would guess in the days before stream deck and even before or at the dawn of corinna aka covid. What an impressive journey this channel has made since then heads off, chapeau!

Where did you get those gimbals for that radio.

Thanks for this video! I removed the 5.8Ghz antennas on my O3 iFlight BOB57 and put the DJI Antenna on. I got a RC loss once while flying with the 5.8Ghz antenna and the BOB57 crashed. Since switching to the DJI stock antenna it’s been perfect. I think iFlight is wrong to use their 5.8Ghz antennas. If the air unit switches to 2.4Ghz then it will just lose signal entirely. I’m guessing that might have been what happened.

about the 30fps mode: UNUSEABLE ;)) it's feels so stuttery. cant fly with it. Was looking forward to a slower shutter and more light to the sensor with 30fps - but not that way. Light handling in backlight situations looks a bit better now. preparing a video on this atm. looks like on my GogglesV2 the 2.7k60fps mode with now 10bit cinelike colors are the best for flying...

Thanks for the excellent review. Just to be sure I understand correctly: I fly FPV planes and only use the video, without the control unit. Can I replace the antenna of the O3 with two 5.8 antennas in left hand polarization without losing the quality of the video transmission?

Nice video as always! Please try to shut down the Googles 2 to check what will happen with the remote, emulating the loss of power at the Googles during flight. I did that with this new firmware but with the Caddx Vista and the dji remote 2 continue controlling the drone without the Googles 2. I also try to fly it again without the Googles 2 and everything was working. In that case with the new firmware I am wondering if the failsafe will activate with the loss of the video from Googles 2, I think the loss of video will not activate failsafe and it is not so good scenario for the drones that have GPS. Maybe that was the reason that dji cut the signal off the remote after video loss in order to activate failsafe and GPS Rescue.

Ian I would like to know or see a test shows the amount of decibel change when the Link switches from 5.8 to 2.4 using a 5.8 only antenna. 2.4 antenna are not even a divisible wavelength of 5.8 and I truly can’t imagine the 2.4 performance is any where close to 5.8 … SWR would also be huge factor potentially. As far as I could see it looked upwards to 20db + difference.. that is substantial. Especially when you are sitting in the bench as compared to at real world range and other potential LOS factors .. Thank you for your continued testing and amazing results.

Does auto channel mode change channels in the air while flying?

Dji should release a jr module and nano module

If Updated, does the ham.cfg still work?

Are the failsafe glitches worked out for o3 BNF quads when I use DJI RC2 transmitter and V2 goggles ?

A real shame that Google v2 do not work with latest version of firmware for airunit01 and vista.... Real shame....

Mads Tech using dji controller 2 so photo button works. Can i take jpeg photos with my 03 like i can with my avata? Am i missing something ?

So how should someone fly when they're flying alone using crossfire as the control link basically which settings?

So for a rc truck . I would need taller antennas since the Unit is not flying. Do I go with 5.8 g omney antennas for both? I’m not using a dji radio I’m using a tango2

Have you cracked open the 03 antenna? The range sucks on the 03 compared to the avata.

Mad Tech, is there any chance you can cover the mode switching issue with Goggles V2. When switching back to FPV system mode you lose the bindings but you only have to rebind one vista to recover them all which is strange and tells me this is not a hardware issue. I bought one O3 unit but this is a massive issue for me because I have a fleet of 5 other drones with vistas and I wonder how long the bind button will last on them. As the Goggles 2 are backward compatible with vistas I wonder if the mode switching issue is a problem for those goggles. Thanks

Does the latest firmware on the O3 unit allows FCC hack?

If I'm not using an RC link and just want better diversity, can I replace the O3 antenna with two 5.8 GHz LHCP ones? Will that allow me to have signal coming out of both antennas, or is one antenna receiving and the other transmitting? I'm trying to fix the problem of my plane's fuselage blocking the signal in some orientations, and a second antenna position would help a lot.

Thanks for this great video! I am glad to see them improving the RF behavior of the remote 2. Your last video stopped me from buying the remote; but this maybe has reconsidering. One question I had is; does the O3 and Goggles 2 allow for OSD to get saved to DVR? Because one of the only reasons to keep my Xlite around is for the GPS logging in real time when I fly long range.

is its safe (or im going to burn something?) to use mono band antenna with o3 air unit that capable of transmitting in dual band??

Hi Ian, the one thing I was wondering is if I use an ELRS receiver, can I equip my O3 unit with 2 separate 3rd party 5.8ghz antennas and rest assured the O3 won't try to switch over to 2.4 and hence attempt to operate on a band where the rx antennae aren't resonating well, making signal loss likely? Currently trying to build a long range rig with O3 and since DJI uses 2 antennas in one housing, it is creating quite a bit of confusion for me.

Ian, I'm not sure if you've already done a video on this. I have a hypothesis and I would greatly appreciate if you could test it using your SA. I think that antennas are linear polarized, but the signal is not. I think DJI (both goggles and air unit) uses 90 degree linear antennas to feed them off phase to create a circular polarization. Further, they are using two antennas to do beam forming. How to test linear polarization: Place a quad and goggles ~5m apart. Place SA antenna between them with a linear 5G antenna. Record signal strength. Then replace linear antenna with LHCP antenna. Record strength. Then RHCP. Record strength. I tried it using my RF explorer and found that RHCP detects stronger signal than linear. How to test beam forming: Place a quad and goggles ~5m apart. Using any antenna take a measurement with your SA ~2m from the quad at 90 degrees to the line between goggles and quad. Then take a measurement directly between the goggles and the quad at the same distance. My hypothesis is that you will get ~3dBm stronger reading when measuring between quad and goggles, because of beam forming.

Can i replace the DJI antenna with small dipole antennas (for a small built)? If so, would i have to use two 5.8GHz antennas? I use the DJI Controller 2 with it.

Hi, I'm using the exact same setup you have there, evoque v2, goggles2, rc2. I'm experiencing some very poor signal, starting to lose mbps after only 50 meters. I did the fcc hack. my mark5 o3 and avata perform perfect with the rc and goggles it's just the evoque the causes signal problems.What could be the problem here?

What kind of telemetry is transmitted from the goggles to the drone?

Q: Can two air units be put on the same aircraft on separate channels without interference? I want my passenger to be able to look around on their own independent head tracking gimble. I notice most people get vertigo if they're forced to only see my view, and can't look around freely. I realize this will also take a separate radio for gimble control as well. Which will further complicate the signal. Can this be done? What are the limits to the DJI system interferences? I would love so see some hard oscilloscope data on this fun topic. Penny for your thoughts, thanks.

If the BEC dies you are still SOL so VBat is the best option.

How is it looking, I'd i update my vistas and goggles v2 can i then use the official OSD (NOT THE WTFOS WAY)?? SO DOES IT ACTIVATE the canvas mode?? And what is the difference after the update that i can't choose power output anymore? Is it then permanent on 1200mw or permanent on 25mw or in-between?? It's all so confusing to me...want to update my v2 to use it with one or two or quads but still want to use all my old vistas (cool would be if the dji osd also works, without wtfos)...or is official OSD only possible with the o3 on v2 and not with the vistas / AirUnits?

Nothing is mentioned about FCC mode, was this on purpose? Since you are in UK... I would say this is pretty important to keep a good connection for long range?

Is This update available for old Caddx Vista and DJI air Unir?

One question, what is this Avatar system that is sharing bandwidth with O3? Is it a camera or a drone?

Ian, if using 5.8 antennas and no DJI remote, should I use RHCP or LHCP with the O3?

When I switch to Manual Mode the “Remote Controller Stick Error” will pops up on my goggles screen with remote 2.

What about the dual polarisation?

I'm curious why DJI doesn't just segregate the RC link to just 2.4G for radio to begin with, and maybe 5.8G/2.4G fall back on the goggles? Also, why the big antenna on the controller if it just goes through the goggles anyways.

What SDR does he use for analysis?

I had a rxloss for no apparent reason today. I am running current firmware for everything. Luckily I was able to recover the quad but now I’m scared to do anything outside of low altitude park flying. Is the only solution to not use the Dji controller with the O3?

HDzero who? DJI is the market leader.

It would interesting to know if DJI is using the bidirectional link to increase crc ratio to increase data recovery chances on the goggles side. This would encourage hdzero devs to implement a similar mechanism to increase signal penetration and robustness

Dear Mad, i bought a quad with Dji O3 & i have Dji Goggles V2. Goggles are equipped with TrueRC-Batch-Antenna. I get only around 10-15Mbps. Is this related to the antenna? Thanks

I dont know if its my problem or not but, so i just installed the o3 air unit. And then downloaded this firmware, everything is great except in the lower right of screen i have "Country code not updated". ??. I then go to status menu and it says to make sure gps is connected correctly then update country code in dji fly app? Has anyone else seen this?

Havnt DJI tryied to hire you??

The Perfect Fix: Don't buy that cheap looking, double what it should sell for, DJI Remote 2 with tiny gimbals, and TOY LIKE crap as hell look!! GET A REAL REMOTE! That $200 DJI remote should sell for what the Radiomaster Zorro does - $99.99 and a little more with ELRS built in, which will get you the most solid, long range signal along with the TBS Tango 2 remote for the same $200 price! Don't tell me you want to $ave money and weight by using the receivers built into the Vista and 03, because ELRS receivers are about $12 and weigh HALF A GRAM! Of Course, you can always buy the Zorro with the AG01 CNC all metal FULL SIZE gimbals for that same $200 price. WOWWY WOW WOW!! - those are such nicer looking and far superior quality and performing remotes too...completely avoid this issue all together! A CONSIDERABLY BETTER VALUE FOR OUR BUCKS! 😎