Joe wrote:
Hi Folks,

I just found this group. Not sure if this is the right place to ask,
but here goes:

I am presently a student studying for my MSc in Applied Physics. Next
semester I have a course in Electronics which is going to require me to
do a project. Now I have worked with radio control vehicles before
(ROV's), but this time, I wanted to build a vehicle and have it be semi
autonomous, ie with a microcontroller. Along with that, I will need a
fairly long range (say, 1 mile) video transmitter to put "eyes" on the
vehicle. I have worked with the short range, commercially available
wireless video cameras that use the pinhole camera and have a range of
about 300 feet unobstructed. I was wondering if anyone on this forum
knows of a kit that I could purchase to build one myself (I may be
mistaken, but an assembled unit probably costs a lot more). If this is
not the right forum, pls let me know that too. Links, ideas, etc are
welcomed.

TIA,

Joe
KB1KVI
(kilo bravo1 kilo victor India)

Joe,

Before suggesting anything it would be helpful to know a little bit
more about the requirements. Are you considering analog or digital TV
transmission? What frame rate is required? How many horizontal lines?
B/W or color? Are you planning on using amateur radio or unlicensed
frequency bands? How long are the transmissions? Any size/weight
constraints?

There are many tradeoffs to be considered. For example if you are
sending digital pictures, the frame rate, vertical and horizontal
resolution, and color depth will dictate the data rate in bits/second.
Based on a given data rate there will now be tradeoffs in terms of
frequency band, power, bandwidth, SNR, antenna size, power supply
requirements etc.

We also need to know if you are considering building something at the
component level or whether you are trying to use off-the-shelf modules.

Sounds like a fun project - Roger