I’m having a hoot flying my Meteor65 all around the house. At first I thought something was wrong with the VTx because the image quality sucked no matter what channel I set it up to transmit on. Then I armed the quad and all of a sudden it was clear. Why is that? I’m just trying to learn as much as I can about these things and FPV in general so it’s got me curious.

There is a setting that has the vtx at low power until armed. Someone else should chime in with what it is and how to change it.
To me, this is handy in case you crash a ways away from you so you can get to the quad before the vtx burns up...

Set vtx_low_power_disarm = "ON" or "OFF"
save

As was mentioned, with a switchable vTx, it keeps the power at 25mW until you arm your quad, and then bumps it up . . . if you have the power set higher. It's also good for when you're working on it. Surprised to see it set up from the factory like that . . . good job.

Yup. It’s a setting that doesn’t usually come from the factory- but it’s something I always set up. It helps keep you from burning out your vtx on the bench.

You can use the commands Brian mentioned to turn it off.
You can also set it up to only be low power until first arm, but, as Brett said, this means you might burn out your vtx if you crashed and have to walk quite a ways to find it- or if you lose it and it takes you a while to hunt it down.

With most vtx’s, low power means 25mw- this is still capable of burning out your vtx if you power on the bench for a while without a fan blowing on it.

Some video transmitters (openvtx) allow you to change power values- so you can set an even lower value, but that’s a whole different topic.

betafpv does produce very weak products, im guessing more about thermal issue. it overheats without airflow.

set it down to 25mw and give it a try. plug in the battery, see if it becomes that worse image after a few seconds on tbe ground from heat

Thank you for the replies. I'm really enjoying learning about this stuff. That makes sense that it would be low power until armed. After I learned that, I took the unarmed quad and moved to close to my goggles and the picture came in clear. It's always been a good picture once armed. I can clearly see all the walls and couches I keep crashing into, haha. Thanks guys!