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How close to power lines before problems?
6139 14 2016-11-3
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Petroboy
Second Officer
Flight distance : 3681 ft
Canada
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This might be a difficult one for anybody to answer unless they have had the experience themselves.  Behind my house is a dense forest with 150 - 200 foot evergreens, and cutting through that forest, about 600 feet from my backyard, is a hydro right-of-way.  This right-of-way has major sized towers (maybe 100 feet high?) with power transmission lines on them heading for the city of Vancouver.  The right-of-way itself is a great gathering area for the local wildlife (black bears, deer, etc.).  I would love to fly the drone near that area at some point (perhaps when I actually receive a drone) and along the right-of-way.

Obviously, it's a no-no to be flying anywhere close to hydro lines, but my question is this:  How close can you come to the lines before the energy signatures given off by the lines affect the drone's handling capabilities?  Here I'm wondering about effects on the GPS and compass systems.  The last thing I want is to lose control of the drone by coming within some danger zone and not be able to have it return home safely.  I would hope that I could sit above the trees some distance back and still get a decent picture of the ground activity.  Any thoughts?
2016-11-3
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nu3vVF6J0ojO
lvl.3
Flight distance : 287749 ft
Canada
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I can tell you on a phantom 3, with atti mode, you could fly around and near them if you wanted.

I'm in BC too, and the lines we have through the woods here are super high tension and and at least as thick as a toonie, so I wouldn't be worried so much about causing an outage.
The problem you'll have on the mavic is there is no way to turn off the gps modes to use atti.  Our lines here hiss when they get wet, so I expect even taking off near them will be interesting on the mavic.

Try going under them and turning it on -- not flying, just turning on and seeing if it even gets GPS.. and then take it from there
2016-11-3
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Sgtbinger
lvl.1
Flight distance : 20400 ft
United States
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Curious my self about this.
2016-11-3
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Mir
Second Officer
Flight distance : 2718491 ft
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United States
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I'd be curious as well. I know P3 and P4 there's no problem. But mavic uses a different transmission technology.
2016-11-3
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Petroboy
Second Officer
Flight distance : 3681 ft
Canada
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Anybody from DJI have any technical knowledge around distances to stay out from possible power line field interferences before any systems are affected on the Mavic?
2016-11-3
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EpicLPer
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Flight distance : 80272 ft
Austria
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Someone flew his Mavic 3 meters away from some power lines accidentally with the Follow Me mode and there were no problems
2016-11-3
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DJI Mindy
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Flight distance : 7 ft
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Hi Petroboy, could you please clarify which Phantom model you have?
If you have a Phantom 3 Pro or Adv, you could enter Image transmission settings.
You can see if there's strong interference around.
For your flight safety, I'd suggest you to stay away from power line field.
2016-11-3
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Sgtbinger
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Flight distance : 20400 ft
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This is for phase to ground. But it's a little guidance as to the ABSOLUTE closest you would want to be without having the magnetic feild be a problem. I wouldon't double that number to be safe. Most distribution is 7200 volts. Transmission lines are 69k,345k or 500k.
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2016-11-4
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Petroboy
Second Officer
Flight distance : 3681 ft
Canada
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DJI Mindy Posted at 2016-11-4 01:30
Hi Petroboy, could you please clarify which Phantom model you have?
If you have a Phantom 3 Pro or A ...

DJI Mindy.  I do not own a Phantom, nor did I say that I did.  I wish to know a safe distance for the Mavic from transmission lines before the flight systems get affected by electrical or magnetic fields.
2016-11-4
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Petroboy
Second Officer
Flight distance : 3681 ft
Canada
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Sgtbinger Posted at 2016-11-4 03:53
This is for phase to ground. But it's a little guidance as to the ABSOLUTE closest you would want to ...

Thanks Sgtbinger.  This looks useful, maybe use 30 feet away for worst case scenario perhaps?  What is the source of the info?
2016-11-4
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Petroboy
Second Officer
Flight distance : 3681 ft
Canada
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Found a couple of other Phantom forum discussions on the subject:

http://www.phantompilots.com/thr ... interference.33069/

http://www.phantompilots.com/thr ... -power-lines.16527/

And one about Mavic compass calibration:

http://mavicpilots.com/threads/compass-calibration-guide.12/
2016-11-4
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Mooney
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United States
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Not this close!

2016-11-4
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T_A_Rogers
lvl.3
Flight distance : 68537 ft
United States
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Mooney Posted at 2016-11-4 23:26
Not this close!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtQ3L59rQ60

I want to slap that idiot so hard
2016-11-4
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method007
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Flight distance : 110449 ft
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T_A_Rogers Posted at 2016-11-5 00:40
I want to slap that idiot so hard

If you get arrested, I'll pay your fine.  Just post here and I'll fly anywhere you are and bail you out.
2016-11-4
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method007
First Officer
Flight distance : 110449 ft
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With the Mavic, don't fly around power lines.  I'd stay AT LEAST 100 ft from them.  Further away the more they are concentrated.  Without manual ATTI, things could get cray.  I've flown close and never had issues - then one day - massive TBE.  It got scary real quick.
2016-11-4
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