Folks. Just started flying a new iFlight Chimera 7 Pro with a RadioMaster TX16S Max and a TBS External Crossfire module set to 1 Watt max and in dynamic mode. I keep hearing about the huge long range of this system. But as soon as I get just at .9 miles away the TX symbol in my DJI goggles start flashing red and I'm down to 2 bars.

So I immediately turn around and come back. I do not understand why I'm getting this Red Flashing warning at such a short range.

Am I just being to cautious. Can I keep flying? The goggles have a range of 2.5 miles so I don't understand why the TX signal is limiting me so much.

Any insight to this would be helpfull.


I have set up and tested the GPS failsafe and it works great, so I know at least I'm safe if I really do get a signal drop off.

Mike.

I'm confused. If you are using Crossfire as your RC Link then you shouldn't even have channel strength bar indicator for the DJI transmitter showing in your goggles. All you get in the goggles for Crossfire is the RSSI / LQ value, but that is a value of 0-99 (not an indicator bar) and it never turns red. The channel strength bar in the lower left which does turn red is for the video signal strength, but if you are running 50Mbps then you can ignore it as it doesn't work properly in 50Mbps mode (i.e. it's completely useless) so you just need to beep an eye on the actual bitrate value in the lower right and when it dips below 10Mbps then start taking notice. Anything under 5Mbps risks a video signal loss / blackout.

SnowLeopardFPV

Well. I'm new to flying non-DJI stuff and I'm stupid. What I was seeing in the lower left corner of my OSD was my DJI Air Unit transmission strength which starts out at 4 bars and when it gets down to 2 bars it goes red and starts flashing like you said.

Which is disappointing as I did not even get a mile (1.6km) away on a nice huge field. DJI says this thing has a range of 4km. Ignoring the flashing red symbol is tough to do when your new.

I guess I need to invest in a directional rig for my goggles ans see if that helps.

Do either of  these affect signal strength. Preferences either Low Latency or Hi Quality.


I'll have to watch the actual bit rate then. Thanks.

Mike.

The video signal strength bars are supposed to work (or at least be much better) when using 25Mbps according to others long range pilots, but I've never personally tested it as I never fly out more than 1km from myself so I just stick to using 50Mbps. It's easier to just ignore the signal strength bar and just keep your eye on the bottom right corner of the screen instead. I also put my RSSI / LQ value there too so all the important OSD elements to keep an eye on are all together in that corner.

SnowLeopardFPV

Friend. If your out there I have one more question about TX transmission strength and the DJI Goggles in Betaflight OSD. Now that I gave the LQ reading out as RSSI on my Crossfire quad, I have a question about the same thing in my ELRS quad.

Same Quad model in ELRS, Radiomaster 16S Max, but a Thor ELRS 2.4 ELRS Module through the DJI Goggles. What OSD mode will show the true TX signal strength.
Link Quality
RSSI Value
RSSI dBm Value

Trying to eliminate things that don't work from my OSD. I think I have everything figured out now except this.

Thanks for the help.

Mike.

Because the DJI FPV Goggles only support the Betaflight RSSI value OSD element and not the the RSSI dBm or native LQ OSD elements you need to use the RSSI value element to display the LQ value. To do that with ExpressLRS, set your RSSI Channel to AUX11 and place the RSSI value element in the OSD at your preferred location. The RSSI value element will then display the LQ value (0-99) rather then the native RSSI value.

Hopefully that makes sense.

If you are running Betaflight 4.3 you can also make use of the following modified Betaflight firmware to display the LQ and RSSI dbm values in the Craft Name OSD element. See the following thread regarding that...

https://intofpv.com/t-betaflight-4-3-0-w...fpv-system

I'll thy using ExpressLRS first.

To be honest I'm a novice at this stuff. I'm using Betaflight Configurator version 10.8.0 (5ec9465). And I'm afraid I really don't know what Betaflight 4.3 is or how to use it or how it is related to the configurator program.

I think I got lucky. The ExpressLRS manual says that it automatically sends out RSSI on AUX 11 and 12 and sure enough when I plug my quad into Betaflight configurator and turn on my radio aux 11 and 12 go full on, so I believe all I have to do is tell betaflight to look at aux 11 for RSSI and display it on my OSD.

Still confused about what Betaflight 4.3 is or how it is different from the latest version of the configurator.

ExpressLRS sends out LQ on AUX11 and RSSI on AUX12 which is why I specified setting the RSSI channel to AUX11 in post #6 (so you get LQ in the RSSI OSD element of the DJI FPV Goggles).

There are two parts to Betaflight - the Configurator which runs on your computer and the firmware that runs on the FC itself. 10.8.0 is the Configurator version. 4.3 is the Betaflight firmware version. To see what Betaflight firmware version is actually on the FC, either look at the bottom left of the Configurator when connected to the FC, or go to the CLI tab and run the "version" command.