antenna wire question..
 

i have a gen 1 and the range is under 100ft is there something i could do to make this better? could i replace the wire lead with a bigger gauge? anything would help, its a budget car so it would have to be farely cheap. thanx!

You could make yourself a twisted antenna with a thicker gauge of wire but I don't think its going to improve your range that much, the electronics on these cars just isn't that strong.

The most common antenna upgrade is the Cat5 wire upgrade. If you do not know what Cat5 wire is, it's wire that is used within computers and for networking situations. It's high capacity wire which also means it's high quality. Since it's high quality wire, the radio waves are more easily transmitted through this higher quality wire rather than the piece of metal supplied stock in an XMOD.

Cheers,
Kyle.

the antenae is tuned for frequency. do not shorten/lengthen it any!

Actually, if you want to get into technicalities and frequencies, you should actually lengthen it or shorten it. The antenna is meant to pick up wavelength frequencies, so you want a perfect multiple of that wavelength to pick up the frequency. So, first you must calculate the wavelength by using the following formula:

Wavelength (ft) = (984) / Frequency in Megahertz (Mhz).

Xmods run on a 27mhz frequency, when doing the calculation you will come up with the wavelength of 36.44ft. Now, we can't have an antenna sticking out 36.44ft from your Xmod, can we? No, that'd be absurd! In order to get a good length of antenna you should shorten it by specific fractions (1/2, 1/4th, 1/8th, 1/16th, 1/32nd... you get the point, lol). Now, we also do lose a little range with each halving, but it will still be a better range than the normal wire which comes stock with each Xmod.

36.44ft ÷ 2 = 18.22ft. Too long.
36.44ft ÷ 4 = 9.11ft. Still too long.
36.44ft ÷ 8 = 4.55ft. Shorter, but still too long.
36.44ft ÷ 16 = 2.27ft. Possible to fit.
36.44ft ÷ 32 = 1.13ft. Probably the best fit.

In order to get the maximum performance from your antenna you want it to be 1.13ft long or 2.27ft long.

make sure there are no 90 degree angles as well, due to my rc plane experience wherever there is a 90 degree angle from teh base to that point is your effective antenna length. thats why the stock antenna on the xmods is curled like a spring to make those abrupt angles.

dont increase the guage i dont know how to make it better but i tried that and my car seriously over heated and had to replace the board