Hi there,
I am new to xbee’s I know that different xbee’s can be made to talk to each other,
If I made an xbee pro talk to an xbee series 1 will it increase my range.
As pro’s have a max range of 1200m
and series 1 have a max range of 100m.
So will their combination help me increase my range more than 100m?
Yes, but maybe not the full 1200m. In addition to having a more powerful transmitter, the pro modules also have a more sensitive receiver, but I doubt it is sensitive enough to receive a standard module’s signal at 1200m.
Also, those range numbers are for ideal conditions, line of site. You won’t get anything close to that in real world conditions.
One must be careful answering such a question 
But yes, the PRO has a stronger transmit and more sensitive receive, so it can talk to a std 100m unit much faurther away than 100m. 1200m away? Maybe. Maybe not. Antenna details, obsticles in between (etc) also affect distance quite a bit.
But a mixed system like that, especially with the ‘central’ role a PRO is a very common design, and why most Digi gateways come with a PRO module.
Okay thanks for makin these things clear but the my main question still stands…
Will this setup increase my range?
No, not with Series 1. They do not repeat or extend the system.
So placing a S1 with 100m range 1200m away from the main PRO unit does NOT allow the main PRO unit to reach a 3rd node 1300m away. 802.15.4 isn’t a mesh, doesn’t repeat.
Zigbee or DigiMesh would (in theory) extendthe range as more hops are added.
so if i use 2 series 1 xbee’s then I will get a max range of 200 m?
Nope. Only 100m.
802.15.4 is a peer-to-peer system. Even the “hub”/gateway does not forward. For two S1 nodes to talk, they need to be within 100m of each other. So if ALL comms go node -> hub/gateway, then yes the RF system COULD be 200m across, but the nodes still can only talk 100m. Two S1 nodes on opposite sides of the 200m radius would NOT see or hear each other.
Now, YOU can write code to manually forward, so node A wants to talk to C and knows it needs to pass though node B on the way.
Zigbee/DigiMesh do this automatically - S1/802.15.4 do NOT.
okay then it means I will have to configure 3 S1 to talk to eachother
like
a<–>b<–>c
but “a” cant directly talk to “c” and also
a and c dont need to be in 100 m range.
but ab and bc should be!
Did I got it right?
No. ‘A’ still CANNOT talk to ‘C’, only ‘B’.
‘A’ can talk to ‘B’, and your code on ‘B’ can receive the message and manually repeat the message to C.
So you’ll need to create your own protocol and so on. This would be called ‘store and forward’ and how radios have done this since decades ago. This will be difficult.
But the S1 won’t help you do this in any way. S1 is a pure peer-to-peer; every S1 XBee must be able to see (radio-wise) any other S1 it wants to talk to.
If you use the S2 (Zigbee or DigiMesh), then the Xbee automatically allow ‘A’ to talk to ‘C’ as long as some path of hops exists. That is magic and you don’t need to do.
With S1 … you have to do it yourself.
Okay,
I have no knowledge about antennas,
What antennas should I use here.
I am making a aircraft