Hi ! Was flying my phantom standard today, it's only new. last few days it's been saying weak signal or sometimes even loses signal all together and returns home at only a distance of 350 meters away and about 70m high. It hasn't been the most clear of views though as its been abit obstructed by large trees and business's.  Is this a normal occurance or is there something wrong ?

Do I need to be in a more clear flying area ? Any help is appreciated ! Thank you

Best to check range in a completely clear area. Anything in the line of site between aircraft and controller WILL cause range problems.

Actually, nevermind, just make sure its clear

clear area for range , DBS mod on my standard for $100 no problem with range now had it out to 14000 ft

HA! I beat the DJI folks

RICK8162JR Posted at 2016-4-26 10:42
clear area for range , DBS mod on my standard for $100 no problem with range now had it out to 14000 ...

Please let them know this will void the warranty if they make changes like the DBS mod.

With that said here is a link explaining a bit more.
http://forum.dji.com/thread-42494-1-1.html

I have a phantom 3 professionnal and I'm having problem with the range.  Sometime I'm about 10 meters from the copter and in direct line of sight and it has a really poor signal but that seems to be related to the place where I am.  I'm on a urbanisation in ecuador where they are building houses and there's plently of space and always a line of sight but I'm unable to get a strong signal.

As soon as I'm flying outside the site, everything return to normal and I'm able to do 1.5 km range without any problem but as soon as I'm flying over the site the signal come and goes.

I'm wondering if the fact that the houses aren't grounded may be a problem because my UPS is stating a faulty ground on all my outlets and it's probably the same everywhere on the site?

Also, there's a 5GHZ Wifi distribution system on the site for spreading internet but that seem to me to be to far from the 2.4 ghz of the remote to be a problem.
And finaly, each house has it's 2.4 ghz wifi but while I was in town in Quebec, I wasn't having such an issue and everyone there has it's router shouting wifi everywhere but still I'm able to fly without a glitch everywhere and to more than 2 km without problem

It really seems to come from the site but I'm unable to put the finger on the problem

Anyone have any idea.

PS: I've built a DIY rang extender out of cardbox and aluminium foil that seems to help but never as efficient as it is normaly supposed to be.

martin.filion.0 Posted at 2016-4-27 08:12
I have a phantom 3 professionnal and I'm having problem with the range.  Sometime I'm about 10 meter ...

The grounding of power has nothing to do with the problem, but the 5.8Ghz and 2.4Ghz WiFi system will certainly have a bearing on your range, this is probably why you can fly some distance away and not suffer problems. The Phantom shares these frequencies with all the other services.

Get away from that area and you should be fine.

Hello tyron, you can follow microcyb's video to select a better place and adjust antennas and RC's position during the flight. What's more, you can also make a comparison with other P3S in the same place. It would be more clear.

Geebax Posted at 2016-4-26 17:47
The grounding of power has nothing to do with the problem, but the 5.8Ghz and 2.4Ghz WiFi system w ...

Thank you,
In fact i've seen the network manager today for that urbanization and he is telling me that he has 2 antennas that are spreading 2.4 GHZ over the whole site ... right in the direction where I'm having those issues.  So my problem is really related to that and I will have to live with it until they activate the Fiber Optic everywhere and shuts down the wireless ... so I'm waiting

PS: Why DJI choose this frequency range that everyone uses for WiFi .. wasn't there any better option available ... strange choice to share a band that is soooo noisy but just personnal thought ;)

martin.filion.0 Posted at 2016-4-28 08:01
Thank you,
In fact i've seen the network manager today for that urbanization and he is telling me  ...

It has nothing to do with DJI choosing that radio band, the regulatory authorities get together on a world-wide basis periodically and agree what radio bands can be used for what purposes. They just love to put all those non-essential services in one band and let them fight it out. The 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz bands have been allocated to radio-control models for many years, and DJI have no day in that.

Are you using an Android tablet? Or Apple?

About couple of weeks ago, I bought an Asus tablet cheap one, £120, 8" size thinking perfect match, as my ipad air 2 is rather big. However, immediately I ran into RC signal loss problems. Well, the tablet had only 1gb ram but i added additional SD card. So the tablet went back to the store, continue to use Ipad and iphone.

Please bare in mind, I am NOT favouring Apple over Android, it is just my tablet was not powerful enough to work. I have a friend uses Samsung phone with no probs. I am just saying that it may be the tablet you are using is not up to perform.

flydodom Posted at 2016-4-28 09:06
Are you using an Android tablet? Or Apple?

About couple of weeks ago, I bought an Asus tablet chea ...

The tablet you use has no effect on the range of the aircraft, well not in a normal way. They only effect it can have is that fact that it is a large metal object perched just above the antennas.

flydodom Posted at 2016-4-27 18:06
Are you using an Android tablet? Or Apple?

About couple of weeks ago, I bought an Asus tablet chea ...

I'm using ipad mini 3 16 gb

Yesterday I had a rare occasion to test all possible causes of this problem because we had experienced a total power outage over the whole coast so the entire site where I am and the near cities where blackout so no possible sources of interferences where active so I grab the occasion to do a test flight.

Here are the results:
Without any WIFI, electrical, or whatsoever interferences arround my problem was exactly the same.  As long as I was over this particular site, my signal was going from 100% to nothing randomly as I was traveling, even triggering the return to home a lot of times.  I've tried to get passed this 1km x 500m site and as soon as my bird was flying farther than that, all return to normal and I was able to do 3 km in each directions

I'm so confused now that all my possible causes are out of the picture ...

So is there anyone thinking of something I may had missed

Thank you