10km build for a plane

Hi folks I’m an fpv pilot approaching openhd for the first time.

Since I saw different videos of people achieving 15/20k of range with this system I decided to give it a go and document myself. I also saw currykitten’s video which seem pretty straightforward.

However, I’m not looking for extreme range, somewhere between 7/10k is where my flying comfort zone ends and it will be enough for me as range.

I read the wiki and think that a following configuration should do:

Pi4b 2gb ram and the 7inch touch display on the ground side
Pi zero wh on the airside
2x Asus ac56 5.8g cards
Zerocam on the plane

As for the model I can use a mini talon an s1100 or an arwing900
All three of them run inav on a matek f405 and crossfire for RC link, also I can use 2.4g for control.

Pretty basic configuration till now, but what should I pay attention to I order to teach my goal?
I read that at least on air usb connections should be replaced with soldering.

What about the placement of the components? What about the antennas?
Clearly stock antennas won’t give me the desired range so what antennas should I use? I have several 5.8g cloverleaf and patch antennas from my analog vtxs. Will the work fine? Which exact frequency the WiFi adapter work on?

What should I be paying attention to in order to have a reliable video feed? As said earlier not looking for extreme range , I’d prefer an enjoyable video feed for mid range flights.

Hello

If you want to use a plane the size of a mini talon and good video quality I would recommend to upgrade the airside to Pi3a+ or even Pi3b/4 ( if you want sound, as these ones have 4 USB ports) and something better than the Pi Zero cam.
This setup is only suitable for really light/small builds imho.

And yes, a good wiring (soldered) and external power supply to the WiFi cards through some STABLE 5V source is critical for the system.

Your old analog 5,8ghz antennas (rp-sma hopefully) will be fine for the ac56. The actual frquency can be set from 5,1ish to 5,8ish Ghz in the settings file.

The default settings will give you a good video quality, as long the camera delivers. Don’t worry about the video settings in the beginning.

hi there, thanks for the tips.

what’s the improvements using a pi3 or pi4 on the airside? i was looking at the pi zero for its small size, also since i have to hook up the wifi adapter some bec and stuff i thought it would add less volume to the plane.

initially i chose the pi zero cam based on currykitten’s video, is there a way i could use something like a caddx turtle?

The Pi3/4 has a much faster SOC so the boot time is shorter and the overall performance is noticeable better. Less trouble with high datarates etc. The Pi4 in addition has also a better USB controller.

The Caddx turtle can be used through an external adapter hdmi-csi (if it has an HDMI port with live out).