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Will a forest affect my radio transmission ?
4121 11 2017-7-11
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coco60
Second Officer
Flight distance : 632096 ft
Canada
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If i take off my P4P near a forest up to 150 ft and horizontally 3000 ft over the forest let say, will my transmitter signal be strong enough to pass through all the trees and reach my drone ?
2017-7-11
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blackcrusader
First Officer
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Taiwan
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Yes if you are standing in a forest and you launch and have to climb high to clear the trees then you will have signal interference.
2017-7-11
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Landbo
First Officer
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Denmark
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Every tree your radio waves will penetrate will dampen the signal, especially the trees with wet leaves have a very big dampening. When you ask so wide, the answer is clearly no.

Choose a place to fly from where you always have Visual Line Of Sight to the vessel.

Regards Leif.
2017-7-11
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Tmygun
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Any object or objects....tree, forests, buildings, power lines, terrain obstacles (mountains, hills, sand dunes......and trees), cars, trucks, dune buggies, towers, and even Bigfoot can effect radio transmission signals adversely if they are between you and your Aircraft.

As both the previous posters said correctly.......keep your craft in VLS (Visual Line of Sight) and you will be fine.
2017-7-11
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coco60
Second Officer
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Canada
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Tmygun Posted at 2017-7-11 11:17
Any object or objects....tree, forests, buildings, power lines, terrain obstacles (mountains, hills, sand dunes......and trees), cars, trucks, dune buggies, towers, and even Bigfoot can effect radio transmission signals adversely if they are between you and your Aircraft.

As both the previous posters said correctly.......keep your craft in VLS (Visual Line of Sight) and you will be fine.

Ya but up to what point will it attenuate the signal? Will the signal still be strong enough to control the drone?
2017-7-11
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dronestarvision
lvl.1
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coco60 Posted at 2017-7-11 17:08
Ya but up to what point will it attenuate the signal? Will the signal still be strong enough to control the drone?

In one word "Considerably"! The old saying is, a tree is 90% air. This is true, but a forest of trees is a different story. When you are talking about line of site(LOS) radio signals or microwave signals, there is so many things to consider like reflection, refraction and diffraction. You also have Fresnel zone interference, which everyone either forgets about or has no clue what it is. Bottom line there is a lot of math involved in figuring out how much it will attenuate your signal. Every forest is different just like every obstacle you around and above is different. Believe it or not, flying over a body of water with nothing else in site will actually effect your radio signal.
2017-7-11
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Tmygun
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dronestarvision Posted at 2017-7-11 17:27
In one word "Considerably"! The old saying is, a tree is 90% air. This is true, but a forest of trees is a different story. When you are talking about line of site(LOS) radio signals or microwave signals, there is so many things to consider like reflection, refraction and diffraction. You also have Fresnel zone interference, which everyone either forgets about or has no clue what it is. Bottom line there is a lot of math involved in figuring out how much it will attenuate your signal. Every forest is different just like every obstacle you around and above is different. Believe it or not, flying over a body of water with nothing else in site will actually effect your radio signal.

What he said!!
2017-7-11
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blackcrusader
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Taiwan
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Lose signal and the drone goes to RTH.  Hope you have enough height on RTH not to hit a tree on the way back Or to not hit branches when landing. Or to have birds fly out and hit your drone.
2017-7-11
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KM5RG-Robert
Captain
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United States
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Trees attenuate your signal. The stronger you make your signal (better antennas, booster amps, etc.) the farther you can go. The more trees the shorter you can go. As stated, just make sure your RTH is set correctly and try it out.
2017-7-12
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kykphantom
Captain
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Cyprus
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Always try and see the result.
2017-7-12
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coco60
Second Officer
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Canada
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kykphantom Posted at 2017-7-12 11:10
Always try and see the result.

The reason i'm asking this question is because if you are standing on low ground level and flying your bird very far out, the signal transmission to the drone is almost horizontal (not up in the air) and any obstacle like trees, buildings etc.. will probably attenuate the signal, but will it diminished how far you could go as compare as if you would fly straight up 1000 ft in the sky. (and please dont come up with regulations that everyone has to observe !!).
2017-7-13
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Dobmatt
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coco60 Posted at 2017-7-13 17:50
The reason i'm asking this question is because if you are standing on low ground level and flying your bird very far out, the signal transmission to the drone is almost horizontal (not up in the air) and any obstacle like trees, buildings etc.. will probably attenuate the signal, but will it diminished how far you could go as compare as if you would fly straight up 1000 ft in the sky. (and please dont come up with regulations that everyone has to observe !!).

People living in remote areas know the fact that cellular signal is stronger in winter. That's because wet summer foliage dampens the signal from distant cell tower, while bare winter branches do that far less. Generally identical rules are valid with aircraft signal transmission: anything between drone and RC will dampen the communication, even moisture in apparently clear air. Therefore the further you fly away, the weaker signal transmission your RC will receive. Unless you like to thrill yourself, always try to maintain VLOS ...
2017-7-13
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