Antenna polarization

Antenna polarization describes the physical orientation in which a radio antenna transmits and receives signal, most commonly either linear or circular. FPV video and control links generally perform best when the antennas on both ends of the link use matching polarization, since mismatched polarization weakens the signal and shortens usable range.

Circularly polarized antennas are the common choice for FPV video because they handle signal reflections off the ground, trees, and buildings more gracefully than linear antennas, reducing the multipath interference that shows up as static or dropped frames in the video feed. Linear antennas can still work well for control links where reflections matter less.

A frequent setup mistake is pairing a circularly polarized antenna on the goggles with a linear antenna on the drone, or the reverse, which noticeably shortens usable range and increases interference compared to a matched pair. Checking that antennas on both ends of a link share the same polarization type, and the same frequency band, is a simple step that avoids most of this.