Still missing.. and continuation

 

Yesterday I was out with a few relatives again to try and find the X550. No luck but must my posters are still hanging on the trees. My strongest guess is still that it's stuck in one of the trees at 15+ meters. However, due to the thick leafs it's quite hard to see anything. I'll have to wait for the leafs to fall off this fall and have a return trip to see if it's possible to spot it.

In the meanwhile if I get no word from any by-passers in a few weeks and as I still have a lot of parts and utilities, I think I'm going to start building a new quad. Almost half of what I've so far invested into this hobby are things such as battery chargers, spare parts, spare propellers and so on. This means I can probably put one together with not too much money.

What I'm missing are electronics and motors, which at most add up to a little more than $150. What I will further invest into and which would have saved my X550 that's done MIA is a radio linked telemetry system. It would have broadcasted it's position and I'd been able to find it easy. Now there are a few ways of solving the telemetry.

3DR $86

One way is the all expensive 3DR Radio Telemetry Kit seen to the right. It costs $86 and would probably do it's job in excellence. But as I'm still aiming for a shoestring budget, I'm sure there are alternatives.

Below are two low cost alternatives. They cost less than half of the original 3DR but should do the job. I've read a blog post regarding the APC220 about how to connect it properly. The third option I found yesterday browsing the web. I have no idea if it works but its branded as the 3DR with a different price so I guess it's a copy. But might still work as well as as the original.

3DR copy(?) $36

APC220 $33