The mean, ugly man in jack boots who carries a $250,000 fine-ing stick…
^
That, but I totally understand your sentiment DTB. Seems like over reaching to me. I have a small 14 acre plot. Anything flying low enough over my property to hit one of my RC toys is flying way, way, way too low. Now if I go over some limit, say 400 feet, then I could understand the need to register.
I dunno, but I think the same company that make 0bamacare website is developing the “register your drone” website…
^
That thought crossed my mind at the time too. 
I think the problem was the ad blockers at work. Worked fine at home.
So, I'm registered for 3 years now. Kind of funny that only US citizens can register. Seems like they would want the database to especially include non-citizens that are flying. At least, if they were interested in comprehensive data and less about covering their _sses.
I just finished building this. I haven’t taken the HAM radio exam yet, so the FPV gear isn’t hooked up, but I’ve been flying and crashing it LOS (line of sight) for a few days now.
I can’t say I care too much about being required to register as a pilot of an RC aircraft that weighs more than 250g. To me it seems like a “cover your a$$” move by the government to say they did something to stop the menace of drones. What I do however have a problem with is the registry being searchable by the public. To me that seems like 2 things:
1. A great tool for the companies involved in creating the recommendations to have the name and mailing address of RC flying enthusiasts without us ever buying a thing from any of them to get on their marketing lists.
2. An easy way for someone to use your registration number illegally to hide who they are when they fly illegally, or for anti-drone nutcases to protest at our front doors.
They use the excuse that it’s so people can bring drones back to their owners if they get lost, yeah right. Like a name and phone number on the craft wouldn’t accomplish the same thing without putting me on a publicly searchable database. If the AMA hasn’t gotten an injunction passed by February 19th I’ll go ahead and register, but it’ll be under protest.
There’s hundreds of pages about this subject out there. The biggest case against the registry is Congress telling the FAA they weren’t allowed to regulate non-commercial RC aircraft under 55lbs in 2012. The FAA is trying to say that they aren’t regulating the aircraft, but the people. 
Regarding the question posed by the OP, get a Hubsan X4, fly it like mad for a couple of months, then get the bigger quadcopter. It’ll easily save you its cost in broken parts on the bigger quadcopter by getting some of the finer control down before moving to a more fragile machine, because the bigger they get, the easier they break. Especially the lightweight long range types, they’re built to float around and take good video, not bump into stuff.
What information do they want when registering?
Name, address, email address, credit or debit card. Two out of the four will be public, for now (depending on how good they are at actually keeping the other two private), in addition to the uniquely identifying (supposedly) registration number you’re supposed to put on any of your 250g+ RC aircraft.
Just tried it out. You can enter literally anything.
Firstname “.”, Lastname “.”, Address “.”, City “.” Only thing it actually required was state and zip. Forgot to check if an invalid zip would be accepted. Email used was a throwaway mailinator.com address. And I bet the $5 fee can be paid via a prepaid visa giftcard.
Honestly, how confident are we that they will be able to keep that info out of the hands of hackers, when they couldn’t even secure the identities and background profile of millions of government employees?
KuoH
[quote=Kloepper Knife Works]
Two out of the four will be public, for now (depending on how good they are at actually keeping the other two private)…
[quote]
You can just leave your address out.
KKW, Nice craft you built there. Do all FPV's require a Ham liciense? I'm guessing you are going to use a frequency that has more range and is one that needs licensing?
I'm building a FPV that will used 5.8G. I'm not aware of any licensing requirement for that. Am I wrong?
I like your thoughts on the drone registration. I would delay registering but I want to fly soon.
I am considering a quad for my latest abandoned mine project. It’s pretty big down there, see the first two photos here: Exploration photos with my flashlights
I am new to quads so I have a few questions if I may without hijacking this thread. FPV is First Person View? With these FPV quads, do they have camera tilt control? I want to be able to control camera angle by remote, not just a fixed point in front camera position.
If you plan to use a video transmitter that has replaceable antennas, or enough range to be useful, chances are you need a HAM radio license even at 5.8GHz. It pretty much guarantees you need to have a license to fly FPV unless the transmitter is 25mW and specifically says it doesn’t require a license to operate. I have a 500mW transmitter at 5.8GHz, which combined with a +10dbi crosshair antenna and Immersion RC spironet omni (about 1.8dbi) running diversity on my goggles should give me at least as much range as my control transmitter, which is easily a mile in most conditions. I chose the high gain directional antenna to help with penetration flying behind trees and buildings. 5.8GHz is easily absorbed by water, so if you plan to do tree dodging in the woods it’s important to have a lot of gain and circular polarized antennas.
Most quadcopters under 400mm diagonal don’t have gimbal mounted cameras because of the weight. They do exist though, and if battery life of less than 8 minutes doesn’t scare you what you need to look up is 3D flying. It refers to the fact that the camera is not just stabilized, but controllable via a transmitter. It’s honestly almost lighter to use a forward facing camera and a downward facing one and switch between them, otherwise you almost need a second transmitter to control the camera gimbal without losing control of the camera unless you plan to use switches for pre-programmed camera positions.
Thank you KKW. I have a few things I need to check out now. Much appreciated :)
Mike C,
Here is the video transmitter/receiver combo I went with. I have not tested them and don't know if they are the best bang for the buck or how much range to expect from them.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/291308765948?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPage...
I also purchased this antenna set.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201318578204?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPage...
Would love to hear if anyone knows of better options out there for furthest range.
There’s quite a difference between antennas. Check out this test on YouTube comparing some.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pysUyZQGb4
There are a lot of choices, and a few top performers. If you’re video receiver has diversity then you can pair the omnidirectional antennas with a high gain directional antenna like a helical or crosshair and get a drastic increase in range as long as you’re flying in the area covered by the directional antenna, and still fly all around yourself at close range thanks to the omni.
Your 200mW Boscam should work fine as long as the channel frequencies are the same spacing as your receiver. Range will vary with antenna setup and background noise on the channel you use.
Here’s the directional crosshair antenna I got.
Thanks for your input. My ambition is to fly over that ledge in the first photo, tilting the camera slowly down as it gets closer to the ledge, finally pointing straight down the moment it passes the ledge. Fixed camera positions wouldn’t quite do what I want to do. I have seen drone footage where this has been done, but I guess these are far more expensive professional tools rather than hobby drones.
Looks cool. Update us once you get ’em tried out.
You can do it with a hobby type drone for a “reasonable” amount of money, the tricky part is controlling the camera without crashing the drone, as you’d be using your transmitter sticks to control either the camera or quad, but not both. Two transmitters solves that problem but adds complexity and weight to the build in addition to cost.
One thing to keep in mind is that you could set the transition from one position to the other on a gimbal setup to be programmed as a slow smooth roll. That would allow for single transmitter control and just a switch on it to give you fixed but still stabilized positions. You’d need to time your flight to the roll speed, but it should be adjustable.
Do you have a plan for retrieving the quadcopter if it crashes in a spot you can’t reach? I need to go back and look at more of your pictures, but I’d avoid flying it over anything you can’t retrieve it from (like a super deep shaft you can’t get down).
I just looked at the pictures, nice place to explore!
^
Yeah, love Mike C's cave pics.
KKW, thanks for the heads up on the Ham license. I downloaded a study guide and will start studying for the test. You sure seem to have thoroughly researched FPV'ing.
I think I may end up going with a more powerful transmitter. Something like this 500mW combo (can get for about $10 less than this link):
I haven't seen anything on the 32 and 40 channel units at Banggood (600mW) like this one:
I'm still researching antenna's. I imagine I will follow your lead and get the same antenna, but I need to learn a little more first.
If I was a broke bachelor with nothing to lose I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time checking into the rules. Ah, responsibility. Rats.
As far as antennas go, get what suits your needs. A diversity receiver for your video system is really necessary in my opinion if you want to use a high gain antenna so you still have good close range coverage without having to wave your head around like Stevie Wonder to keep a good signal. Once it’s a little ways away you just have to be pointing the high gain antenna in roughly the right direction.
If you’re looking to try and save some coin there are really good tutorials at rcgroups for building your own helical antenna.