The GCS ships with an 8-meter fiberglass mast and directional patch antennas for both control and video links. In flat terrain we log solid telemetry to 32 km — a 30% jump over the 6-meter kit that shipped last year.
The mast deploys in under two minutes by a two-person crew. Guy lines are colour-coded, connectors are IP67 and everything is pre-tuned for the standard TACTIC FLY bands — no field calibration required.
Our new mast-mounted antenna array pushes reliable control range past 30 km on the 1.9–2.6 GHz band, without changing anything on the aircraft.
The single biggest win is not raw range — it is line-of-sight clearance over local vegetation. An extra two meters of height eliminates most of the tree-canopy fade we used to see in the first 3–5 km of flight.
Video link performance benefits even more than control. With the mast up we hold 1080p at 60 Mbit/s out to 18 km on the 5.8 GHz path, versus 12 km with a ground-level omni.
Power consumption at the ground end is unchanged — the mast is passive gain. A standard field battery runs the GCS for a full 8-hour shift with margin.
Kits are shipping to units already operating ULTRA and INTERCEPTOR platforms — no firmware change on the aircraft, no retraining for the pilot. If your unit already has our GCS, the mast upgrade drops straight into the existing tripod plate.
