FRSky RXs and the problem in Europe.

[Lee]

Since January there has been a change in the law here in Europe, that means a change in the firmware for FRSky receivers.
In principle, its a good change, as now the receiver has to listen to the frequencies on the 2.4Ghz band, before transmitting.
This means no stomping on someone else 2.4 signal accidentally when turning on your radio gear.

The problem is, this is only applicable to the X series receivers, making the D series unusable here in the EU

Solutions are,
1) Upgrade your radio to the EU firmware, then only buy X series receivers.
This should be ok as FRSky are dropping the price of these, in line with the D series.
But for those with a lot of D series receivers already, you will not be able to run them any more, until FRSky come out with a bug fix for them to work as well.

2) Keep using the Worldwide FW and buy all your receivers from over seas.
Any existing EU spec X series receivers can be loaded with standard firmware.

As I have two D4RII Rxs and one X4R, I have uploaded the standard firmware to my X4R, so I can continue using, the D4RII rxs, until they sort things out.

Its a bit of a pain, but easy to do, if you follow this great video.

https://youtu.be/jz6qnTsHcEE

[pvolcko]

Why is this needed? Aren't the chances of a collision or the freq being swamped pretty low? They've had tests involving a couple hundred active rx/TX connections in the area without problems.

I must be misunderstanding the purpose of this change. And surprising they didn't grandfather existing equipment. All seems odd to me.

[Lee]

Here is a explanation i found of why this is happening.

NEW ETSI STANDARDS FOR WIRELESS DEVICES USING 2.4 GHZ BAND OR 5GHZ BAND

The number of wireless devices using technologies such as WLAN, Zigbee or Bluetooth® has grown rapidly over the last few years. This is why the EU has changed two important ETSI standards, mandatory for market access in Europe.

ETSI EN 300 328 V1.8.1
Due to this, the utilization of the unlicensed 2.4 GHz wideband has increased dramatically and problems such as interference are increasing. The European Union has therefore updated the standards that devices using the 2.4GHz band, have to adhere to. Target is to improve the usage and quality of data transmission within the 2.4GHz band. The new ETSI EN 300 328 V1.8.1 version will become mandatory beginning of 2015.

[pvolcko]

I saw that info in a search I did. Seems goofy to make relatively high power rx/tx units have to jump through this hoop when they seem more concerned with low power, short distance technologies on the band in close quarters environments (in the home, apartment complexes, etc). And still odd they didn't grandfather in existing devices and make this a "here forward" type mandate. There have got to be a ton of devices out there that can not be made conformant that would technically violate the new rule.