been building freestyle quads for a couple years now and just recently put together a longer range setup ? running ExpressLRS 2.4ghz for control and I have a walksnail avatar system for video. everything works great close in but once i push out past maybe 600m the video starts breaking up pretty bad while the control link is still showing like 95+ LQ on my goggles. by the time im at 800m the feed is basically unwatchable but i can still control the quad just fine.

i get that video and control are totally separate systems but is it normal for the gap to be that big? i kind of expected them to degrade roughly together. my video transmitter is set to 1000mw which i thought would be plenty. antennas on the walksnail side are the stock ones that came with the kit, wondering if thats my weak point. i didnt do anything fancy with antenna placement either, just kind of zip tied them to the back of the frame which maybe wasnt the smartest.

not really trying to fly fpv at 800m regularly but id like to understand why theres such a big gap between the two links degrading

yeah this is pretty normal honestly. ELRS at 2.4 is just insanely efficient with its link budget compared to analog or digital video systems. the way ELRS handles packet loss and has that built in failsafe logic means it holds on way longer than video ever will. walksnail at 1000mw is decent but the stock antennas are genuinely not great for range, they're fine for proximity freestyle but thats about it. people swap them out for lollipop or pagoda style antennas and see a real improvement. also antenna placement matters a lot ? zip tied flat against a carbon frame is probably killing some of your signal just from the carbon absorbing it.

the antenna placement thing is huge, carbon fiber is basically a signal sponge. i made the same mistake on my first build and couldnt figure out why my range was so bad. got the antennas away from the frame and pointed down at an angle and it made a noticeable difference. also are you flying with any fpv friends who might be on the same walksnail channel? that'll wreck your video range fast if someones nearby on the same frequency even if they're not flying at the same time