How good is the vex tranciver

[Tytus Gerrish]

I'm making a robot for the police, and considering the vex controller. My question is how powerful is the vex transceiver. what is its range, and is it subject to interference?

[Billfred]

In my experience, the Vex radio is darn good stuff--I've run one from down the hall without problems. (Now, if you start getting where you don't have line of sight, all bets are off.)

As for interference, it's an FM radio. There are only so many FM frequencies, so you might hit a snag there (especially if there's an FVC competition nearby). Although if you had both of the frequency sets from RadioShack, surely you'd be able to find a good one out of nine.

[Tytus Gerrish]

im talking 300' robot in a building and the controler in a truck across the street

[artdutra04]

im talking 300' robot in a building and the controler in a truck across the street
It may depend on the building, but I've been able to drive my Vex robot from about 150-200 feet away in my high school. I'm not sure how how much the walls might lower the reception, as that would depend on the building materials of the wall.

Was this inspired by the Vex Bomb Squad Robot (http://www.vexlabs.com/video/Bomb%20Squad.mov) video? ;)

Edit: w00t! 228th Post!

[sanddrag]

If it is anything like a hobby RC radio, it will have a darned good range. As long as you have the antenna(s) properly extended, even the cheapest AM RC radios claim to have a range of 1/4 mile. FM should do slighly better than that. My guess is you can take it as far away as you can see it, and still have some range left to work with - that is, if it is anything like a hobby RC radio.

[gdo]

they are quite good I could go a good distance, I'll try to test the range, but with the building, I could get it through 3 walls ~8in. thick, but these are interior walls. the construction of the building could affect transmissions. a taller building would have thicker walls and would have metal interfering with the transmission, I hope that this project turns out for you well

P.S. why did you start considering vex robotics, it wouldn't be my first choice for a police robot

EDIT: it could have interference if anyone is on that frequency, I've only had that problem when you have the wrong crystal, but as someone already stated if you have all 9 crystals you should be fine to avoid interference