Snow, lines, black screens: the picture itself tells you what is wrong.

Your picture travels along a chain. A bad picture means one link is broken.

Half the chain is on your head. Before you blame the drone, rule out the goggles.

Every kind of bad picture points at a different link.

Weak signal: antennas, distance, something in the way.

Electrical noise from motors and ESCs.

Another pilot on or next to your channel.

Camera and goggles set to different standards (PAL / NTSC).

The camera or its cable. The VTX is fine.

Not the signal: lens, fog, goggle focus.

Check antennas first. Most snow is a broken, loose or wrong antenna, on the drone or on your goggles.

Antennas are RHCP or LHCP. Mix them and you lose most of your signal. Check the label.

A cracked tip or a loose connector looks fine and flies badly. Never power up without one: the VTX can burn out.

Bodies, walls, concrete, trees, flying behind things. Keep the drone in sight of your antenna.

At HOBIzone we never fix snow with more power: 25 mW, always. Fix the antennas instead.

Motors and ESCs make electrical noise. It travels through the wires into the camera and the VTX.

Watch your DVR: do the lines come with throttle? Then it is noise, not signal.

A low-ESR capacitor across the battery pads, legs as short as possible. 470 to 1000 µF, rated above your battery voltage.

Camera and VTX on the same ground, power from the flight controller, away from the ESC.

Testing on the bench? Props off. Always.

Your picture was fine, then suddenly it wasn’t. Look around before you look at your drone.

Bars, someone else’s view, a picture that rolls: two pilots are too close in frequency.

A quick test in the pits, a drone on the bench. Ask: “who just plugged in?”

Two pilots on channels next to each other can still clash. Spread out on raceband.

Your goggles, your head and your eyes are part of the chain too.

Same checks as on the drone: bent, loose, wrong twist. Your goggles may have two: both matter.

Chin down points the patch at your feet and the omni’s blind tip at the drone. Your head blocks it too.

Set focus and eye distance. Wipe the camera lens. Fog when you come in from the cold. PAL / NTSC set the same.

Change one thing at a time, and test after every change.

Snow, lines, ghost, grey, black, blur (fig. 2).

Try a friend’s goggles on your channel. Try your goggles on a friend’s drone.

Tight, straight, the same twist.

Band, channel, 25 mW, pit mode off, PAL or NTSC.

Camera cable, solder joints, capacitor. Swap one part, test again.

Race video is rarely clean: four drones in the air, a hall full of walls and people, a rival right next to you. The best pilots fly through the static.

Fix what you can before the race. In the heat, keep flying. After it, check the DVR and fix the next thing.

We fly frying pans: nobody else is cooking. Bad video is something you can make better, not somebody else’s fault.

Snow: check the antennas first, on both ends. Same twist.

Lines with throttle: electrical noise. A capacitor and tidy wiring.

Someone in your picture: channels. Who just plugged in?

Grey, rolling, blurry: settings, lens, focus. Not the signal.

One change at a time. Swap to find which half is broken.

Never fix it with more power. 25 mW, always.