Hi.

Flew my drone out over the sea yesterday using the remote control. Was expecting to fly much further than 300m before my controller disconnected. Video became choppy (usable) and then the drone returned home due to losing connection. Anyone have any ideas why its so low?

344m is much less that the advertised 2km. Attached is the log.

You have to fly much (!) heigher. Try it with 100 or 120m height.

But when you flying under CE conditions you get only:
2.412 - 2.462 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference) CE: 0.3 mi (500 m);
5.745 - 5.825 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference)  CE: 0.18 mi (300 m);

Use 2.4ghz for better range.

Dirk52 Posted at 2017-7-3 06:18
You have to fly much (!) heigher. Try it with 100 or 120m height.

But when you flying under CE conditions you get only:

Sorry what do you mean under CE conditions?

But when you flying under CE conditions you get only:
2.412 - 2.462 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference) CE: 0.3 mi (500 m);
5.745 - 5.825 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference)  CE: 0.18 mi (300 m);

Buzzyone Posted at 2017-7-3 06:22
Use 2.4ghz for better range.

ok will try that. thanks

According to your GPS location you where flying in the EU (at least till now). The Spark has to comply with the CE standard and therefore the Spark can not send with full power, like you would have with the FCC standard (for US). If you look in the tecnical data of the Spark on the dji homepage you'll see the max distance with the remote control and CE is 500 m. Sadly you can not change to FCC as th1e Spark automatically changes the standard according to your location.

E-Bros Posted at 2017-7-3 06:25
According to your GPS location you where flying in the EU (at least till now). The Spark has to comply with the CE standard and therefore the Spark can not send with full power, like you would have with the FCC standard (for US). If you look in the tecnical data of the Spark on the dji homepage you'll see the max distance with the remote control and CE is 500 m. Sadly you can not change to FCC as th1e Spark automatically changes the standard according to your location.

Woah, that is bad news. Not very clear thats what it means. Now i know. Such a shame!!

The Spark changes based on its GPS location the trasmission type. CE, FCC or SRRC.

2.412 - 2.462 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference)
FCC: 1.2 mi (2 km); CE: 0.3 mi (500 m); SRRC: 0.3 mi (500 m)
5.745 - 5.825 GHz (unobstructed, free of interference)
FCC: 1.2 mi (2 km); CE: 0.18 mi (300 m); SRRC: 0.7 mi (1.2 km)

thanks all. Ill try 2.4ghz to get 500m if needed.

See you see me. Make sure Spark can see you clearly in all flight path.

That means also a US Spark Version (buy in the US) can also just fly 300m in EU ?

That would suck because the DJI support give me the information that i can fly the full range also in the EU / otherwise I wouldn't buy it ??!!  

fans137b2bc3 Posted at 2017-7-3 21:36
That means also a US Spark Version (buy in the US) can also just fly 300m in EU ?

That would suck because the DJI support give me the information that i can fly the full range also in the EU / otherwise I wouldn't buy it ??!!

There is only one Version of the Spark... so no, you can’t fly the FCC range in the EU.
Not only the Spark, same with Phantom, Mavic etc. only one version.

Defo fly higher with the Spark. I don't have this problem with my P4P and have had some very good ranges from this, as well as height. Sure all the settings are good....??

How do you change to 2.4Ghz. When I am connected with the controller, i go into the app and select 2.4 but it only shows me the channels. Doesn't change to 2.4. How do you do that?

Remember these are maximum ranges.  You may get less due to interference or obstructions.  Also remember that this is WIFI, not the same power and frequencies used by the Mavic and Phantom. Greater altitude also helps most of the time.  The other key factor is making sure the remote antenna is perpendicular to the Spark to optimize the radiation pattern.

Took the drone out tonight onto a local field. Went straight up 85m and the video started disconnecting and controlling the drone laggy. Not very good really

Hi you used OTG cable  to connect the phone and RC ?

Not yet. Shame It doesn't work as advertised. I have ordered one just in case to see if any better

Blackforce Posted at 2017-7-5 12:11
Took the drone out tonight onto a local field. Went straight up 85m and the video started disconnecting and controlling the drone laggy. Not very good really

Due to orientation of the antennae, straight up is often the worse signal.

I'm also really disappointed so far.
Since I'm in Germany the limit should be 500m. And since it's a limitation in the software I thought 500m wouldn't be a problem at all.
But I'm not able to fly away more than 160m before losing signal. Am I holding it wrong?
I've tried it at two very rural locations now, where there are no powerlines and stuff. So I should be close to the optimum.

Can someone explain how the height is relevant? Maybe that's the problem here.
Because of the scary stuff some Spark drones do, I'm still very frightened to go very far or high.
My height for the range test was a mere 12m. Is that an issue?

Same here. Really annoyed about the distance. Also they say that it goes further in 2.4ghz. But you can't change it to 2.4ghz. Keeps going back to 5.