OpLinks work very well but there is an issue with the Revo Mini versions of OpLink (Air and Ground). I personally have had this issue. I really would try to sort this issue and use OpLinks if you intend to use LibrePilot.
The issue is that these OpLinks (and some others, and maybe some FC's too) have a bad brand of RFM22B (RF board). So call these Bad and call the ones with good RFM22B boards Good. Good works with Good, and Bad works with Bad, but Good does not work with Bad. One or more of the "channel hopping channels" are not on the correct frequency, but when you use Bad with Bad, they both use the same (wrong) frequency, so it works fine.
Set up both ground and air the same way except for what must be different (coordinator or not, coordinator ID, device ID). Also, you must be using the same version (e.g. 16.09) on both ground and air. You can sometimes get away with different versions, but not when the versions are as different as 16.09 and the current 'next'.
Here is a thread that describes the issue. Just read the first post, it has been updated with current information. You can see the drops in signal level even in 16.09. To see the AFC correction that is happening too, you must be using 'next':
https://forum.librepilot.org/index.php?topic=4197.0