ok so this has been bugging me for a while and i cant find a straight answer. ive got a rushfpv tank 5.8ghz vtx running 400mw and right now the antenna is just kind of tucked to the side under one of the arms because i was lazy when i built it and never moved it. range seems ok but i had a couple close calls last month where video got real bad and i almost lost orientation.

now i dont know if thats antenna placement, the fact that im running a stock linear that came with the vtx, or something else entirely. the frame is a stretched X so theres not a ton of room in the back for a proper upward-facing antenna mount but ive seen people run them at weird angles and claim it works fine. is there actually a meaningful difference between straight up vs angled vs tucked, like real world measurable or is it more of a marginal thing people obsess over online

also thinking about upgrading to a TBS crossfire pagoda or maybe a lollipop2 but honestly not sure what the actual difference would be for my use case which is mostly proximity flying at a local spot, nothing crazy far, maybe 200-300 meters max

placement matters more than most people think it does. a linear antenna tucked under an arm and partially blocked by carbon fiber is gonna have significant signal drop in certain orientations, carbon attenuates 5.8 pretty badly. the close calls you had were probably the quad at an angle where your antenna was pointed almost directly at your goggles, circular polarized antennas have that null point at the ends of the element so if you're flying toward yourself with a vertically mounted antenna you basically have a dead zone there.

for 200-300m proximity you dont need a pagoda necessarily but getting off that stock linear is still a good move. lollipop or rrusian clover type antennas are cheap and genuinely better. mount it so its pointing up and away from any carbon as much as your frame allows. even a 45 degree angle clear of the frame is way better than what you described.

honestly the carbon blocking thing is real, i learned this the hard way with a similar setup. switched from linear to a foxeer lollipop on the vtx and put a pagoda on my goggles and the difference was pretty noticeable, way less breakup doing proximity stuff where the quad is doing weird angles. the antenna on your goggles side matters too btw, if youre still running the stock stubby antennas on fat sharks or whatever those can be a weak point