FrSky 900MHz R9M 2019 Long Range Module System Compatible R9 Series (ACCST/Access)

I bought this module because I needed more range than I could get from my radio's internal RF. The price was fair and I am quite pleased with the range improvement: I was able to fly out 3X as far just using the lowest TX power setting. I paired this with the R9 Mini RX: Installation and setup was super easy, I did not have to install any firmware updates. My Taranis QX7 came installed with a recent version of ACCESS, so all I had to do was go into the Model Setup and tell it to use the external RF module. I have not tried this module with ExpressLRS yet (mainly because it works so well "out of the box"), but that's another big plus that it's compatible.

Have your little XT30 battery ready to make the most of it (450-600mah 2-3s is plenty). Otherwise AAs in the remote aren't working enough. Also at 1W it makes the Taranis speaker buzz :-/

Pros - Affordable 915MHZ LRS radio unit, Compatible with ACCESS / ACCST, works with ExpressLRSCons - FrSky switch from ACCST to ACCESS makes firmware updates / RX binding a pain, antenna cable is soldered onto board (no ipex or u.fl connector) so is a pain to install into tray radios like the Taranis X9E.This is the latest version of LRS put out by FrSky. It comes pre-installed with the ACCESS firmware. My radio is too old to take advantage of ACCESS so I'm using this with the ACCST firmware and it works fine. I've also used it with ExpressLRS and Betaflight and that works great. But it's one of the more difficult modules to set up because there are so many incompatible firmwares. That's why I knocked it down a star... It's 5 star hardware running 3 star software. The thing that redeems it is ExpressLRS.Basically this is a good module, but there are too many incompatible FrSky firmware versions available so it's confusing to set up. If your transmitter is older (like my Taranis QX7 is) then it won't work with the newer ACCESS firmware that comes preloaded on this module. In that case you have to flash both this TX module and your RC receiver with matching versions of the older ACCST firmware. ( there are both FCC and EU versions of each. To make things more confusing, there are also 'Flex' versions for some receivers which can operate on both EU and FCC frequencies. Everything has to match so if your TX is on the EU version of ACCESS firmware, then your RX must also have the EU ACCESS firmware. If your TX is using the ACCST-FCC firmware your receiver must also be using the ACCST FCC firmware. )If you flash the wrong version, then either your Transmitter won't be able to talk to the TX module or the TX module won't bind to the RX.Also it is worth mentioning that not all R9 receivers even have ACCST firmware available. At the time of writing, ACCST firmware is available for - the R9-mini, R9-mm, R9-stab and R9-slim+ receivers.The R9-MX and R9-SX receivers are ACCESS only. So if you plan on using ACCST, avoid those receivers.Here is the most important part - If you are running Betaflight/iNav then you won't care about ANY of this because you will just flash it all with ExpressLRS. (Highly recommended).But if you are on Ardupilot, then you may wish to stick with FrSky ACCESS/ACCST firmware at least until CRSF passthrough telemetry for ExpressLRS is out of beta. (Or you may just give up on FrSky and get a TBS Crossfire...)Bottom Line this is a really good piece of hardware marred by FrSky's protocol switchover and redeemed by it's ability to run ExpressLRS.

I have been hearing alot of bad things about these R9Ms, But I must say the one I bought works flawlessly!

Absolutely a 🍋 of a product.