Mr. Coyle,
My comment was not to diss the Army. I spent the most interesting year of my Naval career as an intelligence lead with them. Didn't mean to offend you or any other Army folks. I would have done another tour there had there been the chance.

Happy holidays to you.
Julie

Mr. Coyle,
It looks like you and I have a lot in common. I too am a systems engineer, 25+ years working in companies that supported DoD...now I work at a small company that supports NASA.
I stumbled upon DIY Drones without spending a great deal of time investigating the 'Dos and Don'ts' of what the site is all about. Is this a hobbyist forum for folks who are or were RC builder/flyers or is this site focusing on trying to develop the UAV industry in areas that the General Atomics, Boeing's and DRS's of the world don't compete in?

I have been a UAV fanatic for almost 2 decades now. I worked "trying" to integrate the early Predator [back when it was still an ACTD] into the Navy with no luck and was very fortunate while in Iraq to be able to have 'control' of most of the Preds in country. I came back hoping to start a UAV company that provided full up ops to a customer - vehicle(s), control stations, operators, etc. to find that it was impossible to get bankers to understand what I wanted to do in order to get funding. I gave up and bought a kit car company instead. Now, I find DIY-D and have my interests rekindled.

I find your comments in re: ESD to be on the mark. Way back when, when Bombardier was working on what everyone called 'the Peanut', they had all sorts of issues with control. Turns out that they had ESD gremlins. Once figured out, their system worked quite well. I hope folks heed your warning.
Julie

Not yet, is full of dust, i will use it for ardupilot mega, so it will remain in the shadows until then... ;-)

Howdy Thomas. I have have done a bit more troubleshooting and narrowed it down to the transmitter board. There are clearly three black vertcal bands through the video. The easiest way to see them is to connect the camera ground wire, but not the signal wire. I have found that I need a good video display on the receiver that can lock on to the signal to see the bands. If I don't get a good lock, then it looks a bit like static (but it's not - it's a noticeable pattern). I need to take the transmitter apart and review the construction very carefully. One of the fellows at DPCAV has been helpful in guiding my troubleshooting. So, I still need to make progress on that front. Right now I've diverted to a CNC mill retrofit project since I've got a chunk of time off to try and get that running. I will certainly get back to the video transmitter though, I'm just shuffling priorities since winter has set in. And I'll be curious to hear how yours works.

Andy

Well Tom, at first i was a bit dissapointed to read that you don't own the avatar-plane, but finding out more about the MAJA, my dissapointment changed to a very happy state. This kind of plane is exactly the sort of plane i was looking for. I want to start a payed hobby in aerial photography. Vertical photo's for GIS. I will first buy a easystar to get familiar with real flying (instead of game-based) and then upgrade to a more full-load plane, like the MAJA. Do you know if it flies similar to the easystar?
Grtz Bart

Yes, I post on Aeroquad forum and RCGroups as RoyLB

- Roy

Thanks, did you read my question regarding the Borjet Maja? I'm interested in the airframe and I believe you commented on it somewhere along with using the landing gear that they sell. Any pictures or info you could share?

Thanks,


Adam A.