Do you have to move your two patches much, or at all when flying far away, or directly overhead? I've got a similar setup (two 900Mhz Rx with 8dB patches into Oracle Diversity) and I get a lot more signal dropouts and noise at those ranges.

No, I don't end up having to move them. The patch antennas get positioned on the ground 83.5cm (33in) apart, positioned for vertical polarization and always very close to the ground at about a 45 degree angle. Patch antennas seem to work better close to the ground than raised up into the air. I don't do much flying directly overhead but the few times that I did it, the signal stayed strong.

One other thing that really helps with video signal strength is the better antenna attached to the video transmitter on the plane. Because the video is 900MHz, a 3dBi rubber duck antenna is rather long but in my mind worth the improved signal strength. If you're using 2.4GHz for your video, rubber duck antennas are much smaller and you could probably use a 5dbi one.

As I said, I'm using same 900Mhz system. I saw zero improvement with the monster 3dB dipole, and I've got 5 of em to test with. I've tested 2 different Txs, 3 different Rxs, 2 patches, several dipoles. Furthest flights have been with stock whip, of all things.
If I don't point my patches at the plane all the time, the signal drops out a lot. Endless source of frustration to me when I see videos like yours. Oh well, I'll sort it out someday. Thanks for the info.

Ah, sorry to hear that. Hmm, have you tried making sure that the patch antennas are oriented for vertical polarization? I accidentally flew once with the antennas flipped the wrong way and my signal strength was terrible.

Also, I'm not sure if I was totally clear in my first response. I do indeed fly "in front" of the antennas whenever I'm flying but the further away I get, the more room I have since the "bean' arcs outwards and you get more angle the further out you are. If I try to fly too far to the right or left of the antennas, I do get some signal loss.

How far to the right or left of the antennas are you trying to fly by the way?

Not very far to the sides. I typically have to point the patches *directly* at the plane to get any reasonable distance. My Oracle box switches constantly. With regard to orientation. Since you're sitting them on the ground, are you running with the cable coming off the patch straight up, to not sit on the wire and maintain vertical orientation? I'll mess with that some more.

I'm running the patch cable down, not up. I actually have the patches mounted on these very small tripods that are about 6-8 inches long. It allows me to angle the patches at about 45 degrees and keep the cable on the bottom without it pressing against the ground.

I haven't tried flying with the wire coming out of the top. I wouldn't "think" it would make a difference since it's still vertically polarized but a quick test I did inside my house showed that having the cord on the bottom actually produced a better signal. Hmm, can't explain it.

I'm very surprised you can get more distance with the whip antenna than the patches and that you get so much switching on the Oracle. That makes me think it's not just a bad patch antenna. Where did you get them at by the way? I ordered mine through HyperLink.

One of my patches was direct from Hyperlink, the other direct from RangeVideo, but they're identical. I've tried it with the cable in every orientation except down (since I don't want to set it on the cable), so I'll try that next. Haven't found a mini tripod with a wide enough base to keep the patch off the ground reliably, so I'm using one regular tripod, and one flexy tripod thing that I use just to prop the other one up, when it's sitting on the ground or lying flat.