right so the park i usually fly at has apparently become some kind of wifi dead zone hellhole. theres a rec center nearby that just got a new mesh network installed and ever since then my fpv setup is basically unusable there. running a TBS Crossfire on 433mhz for control which is fine, that hasnt budged, but my 5.8 video feed is getting absolutely destroyed. im on a Caddx setup, tried channels 1 through like 6 on raceband, everything is just noise.

the weird part is 5.8 shouldnt even be that affected by a wifi mesh system right? most of those run on 2.4 or 6ghz. so now im wondering if theres something else going on. theres also a cell tower that went up maybe 6 months ago like 400 meters from the field. could that be bleeding into 5.8 band somehow or am i just grasping at straws here

thinking about trying a different vtx with a cleaner signal, maybe the HGLRC Hermes or something, but before i spend money i want to rule out environmental stuff. also open to the idea that my antenna orientation has just been wrong this whole time and im an idiot

cell towers generally wont bleed into 5.8 video band, theyre operating on completely different freqs. but that mesh network is worth investigating more because some of the newer tri-band systems do operate a backhaul channel in the 5.8 range, like actual 5.8ghz not just 5ghz wifi. if the rec center is using something like that for the node-to-node communication you could absolutely be seeing that interference even though its not technically standard wifi.

easiest thing to do is pull up a spectrum analyzer app on your phone and just walk around the field and see whats actually broadcasting in that band before you buy anything. tinySA is like 30 bucks and would give you way more info than just guessing at channels.

antenna orientation is way more important than people give it credit for so i wouldnt completely rule that out lol. but also have you tried just flying at a different time of day? if its a busy rec center the network traffic might be way lower on like a tuesday morning vs weekend afternoon and you might actually see a difference just from that. not a fix obviously but it would help narrow down if its actually load-related interference