We have so many brand new white radios, is there a way to use them for practice since the black ones are unavailable?
Is it true you can cannot practice with the new black radios when you only have one since they run on 6GHZ?
The old white radios (OM5P) will still work for practice at home. The only thing is that they aren’t allowed at a competition.
You should have gotten a VH-109 in the Season Specific Box. There are multiple ways to use it for practice as well. You can use it as a 2.4Ghz radio and just connect to the driver station laptop like you used to. That requires you to flip a switch on the radio. This is slower and Vivid Hosting warns against it unless you have to.
If you have a 5Ghz capable laptop (Wi-Fi 6E), you can connect to it just like the old radios as well.
The recommended solution, and what we’re doing. Is to buy another VH-109 when they become available to you, and set it up in access point mode for the driver station laptop.
For more information (and very helpful disagrams,) read the documentation on Vivid Hosting’s website here.
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The above answer is the right answer. You can still use the old radios for practice if you don’t want to deal with the 2 radio setup.
However, new radios are available and in stock.
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What confused me there is that they are also selling the Robot Access Point (WCP-0395). So I wasn’t sure if the regular radio would do or if I needed this thing.
No, you definitely don’t need that. That’s the field radio for offseason use. It’s bad naming and location on the site, hopefully that gets fixed soon.
Note: the regular robot radio will overheat as an access point. You need to add heat sinking/fan cooling. They sell a module for this. I just built my own over the break 
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That looks sick! would you mind sharing what parts you used? Also how much did that cost?
Its a heat sink I got from the local electronic surplus place and sawed in half (it was a big-un!).
A 12 Volt fan lives on the fin side. You can plug into the 12V port on the radio and the POE will pass through to the fan.
I used some thermal grease between the two. The brass screws are just there to keep it from sliding around.
I tapped the end of the heat sink 1/4"-20 to match a camera tripod screw.
Its really the same as the heat sink WCP sells. I just got to have fun making it!
Here’s a close up mounted. There’s a a 3DP finger guard on the fan. For full speed work you are supposed to have one cable for POE and one for high speed internet. You also need a certain brand of managed switch, which I bought.
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Make sure that the POE you are using is 12v, as those 12v pins are directly connected to the PoE pins.
There is a warning if you use the Rev Radio power module, it outputs 19V, and can’t be connected to the robot 12v.
(Basically don’t overvolt your fan accidentally, the PoE voltage = the 12v input (aka output here)).
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The size of that heatsink I dont think you even need the fan haha.
I am confused rookie team here so you can’t practice with the new radio they give us and you shoudln’t use the rev POE
This will be a treasure trove of information for you:
There are ways to use it to practice at home - some are different than what teams have done in the past with the old white radios - and are hardware dependent.
You CAN use the REV RPM to power the radio - but other downstream devices you may want to power over passive POE like a LIMELIGHT camera may not be compatible with the 19V the RPM puts out…so you are likley better powering from 12V
You can find details about how to practice at home with the VH-109 here
https://frc-radio.vivid-hosting.net/getting-started/usage/practicing-at-home
As for the Rev Radio Power Module.
Its fine to use as long as it’s wired per R616 and R617.
would a VRM be better to power the radio from or straight into the PDP?
Ultimately it’s whatever makes the most sense for you.
Personally I would recommend directly to the PDP/PDH because it removes a point of failure (VRM/RPM). As well as powering the radio with both PoE and via the 12V Weidmuller DC input.
(Details here: Wiring Your Radio | FIRST FRC Radio)
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