okay so this has been bugging me for a while and i finally decided to post about it. running a 400mw vtx on my 5inch and my video goes to garbage way sooner than it should, like my buddy has the same vtx same power output and he's getting clean video way further out than me. we're both on 5.8ghz. my antenna is a lollipop RHCP, his is also a lollipop from the same brand, so its not like he's running some crazy pagoda or anything exotic.

the only real difference i can see is how we've mounted them. mine is kind of tucked along the back arm pointing sort of diagonally back and down because i had a cam angle clearance issue and it was easiest to route the pigtail that way. his is mounted straight up vertical out the back. i always kind of assumed antenna orientation mattered less with circular polarized antennas but maybe im wrong about that? also not sure if the pigtail routing could be causing issues, its a pretty tight bend near the connector.

running fatshark recon v3 goggles with the stock patch on one port and an omni on the other through a diversity receiver, not sure if thats relevant or not

yeah the orientation absolutely still matters with RHCP, circular polarization helps with multipath rejection and matching polarity between your vtx and goggle antennas but the radiation pattern is still directional. a lollipop or clover has a toroidal pattern meaning it radiates out from the sides mostly, so if yours is pointing diagonally backward youre basically aiming the weakest part of the pattern toward your goggles half the time you fly. mounting it vertical and clear of the frame is almost always going to be better. also that tight pigtail bend is sketchy, ive seen people crack the inner conductor on those ufl connectors from bending too much and it causes all kinds of weird intermittent issues, worth swapping that out if it looks kinked at all

this came up for me too a while back and it turned out my vtx was actually getting throttled down because it was overheating, some of them will drop power automatically when they get hot and the logs dont always show it obviously. might be worth checking if the vtx is getting airflow or if its buried under a stack with no ventilation. 400mw puts out a decent amount of heat and if its thermally throttling to like 25mw youll see exactly what your describing