I have some water towers, 3 of them side by side.  They look great.  They are almost surrounded by power lines and a cell tower.  

I am very cautious and can avoid them, but I don't know how my P4P will react near them.  I am guessing about 200 feet distance.  Also there is a cell tower right there... how would that effect it?  

I want the shot, but am very cautious and haven't flown near it.  I am not worried about flying into the wires, I am nervous about losing contact and the drone not responding.

Thoughts from folks who know...?

I steer clear of major power lines but i do have a spot where i fly p4 advanced that is directly under a cell tower. I have flown numerous times without any issues....

If you set your rth point correctly in theory if you loose signal your drone should automaticly go to your set altitude and fly back to the rth point. Interestingly tho you will most prob loose video signal first but can still fly by visual. Im not sure however if the on board recording continues if you loose video to the rc

R&L Aerial  Posted at 2017-9-18 11:59
I steer clear of major power lines but i do have a spot where i fly p4 advanced that is directly under a cell tower. I have flown numerous times without any issues....

Oh...okay... that's good to know.

Hellsgate Posted at 2017-9-18 12:01
If you set your rth point correctly in theory if you loose signal your drone should automaticly go to your set altitude and fly back to the rth point. Interestingly tho you will most prob loose video signal first but can still fly by visual. Im not sure however if the on board recording continues if you loose video to the rc

yeah... I don't really use RTH feature.  It's there, I have done it a few times, but I really like to be in control of the aircraft.  I don't really know what I expect... It's just I try to avoid it.  But that would be the best possible solution.  Thanks for your comment

I would try and steer clear, but if you have safe flying conditions around you, you should navigate it

It is an urban myth about power lines and cell towers. Neither of them generate interference that a Phantom is affected by. The only exception is if the cell tower also transmits a local WiFi signal, but that is relatively rare.

Can't speak regarding the cell tower but the park where I fly has power lines which have never cause me a problem.

The bad thing about flying near cell tower and power lines is that,  if you crash due to hardware and software failure, you give a reason for know-it-all to blame your crash being a pilot error. Just like crashing the drone few minutes after taking off from concrete floor.

I once flew pretty close to a radio tower's antennas with no issues.  Can't remember the exact distance, but my forward vision sensors were giving me warnings.



Fun fact: that gray object on the frame in the bottom half of the picture was the actual broadcast antenna.

I was once filming a big property in the center of a city There were 3 towers (not really sure what they were for, maybe cell) but as I was doing a flyby i went over them and as soon as I passed them I lost signal
But RTH kicked in and as soon as I regained connection landed it myself
Be careful when flying but RTH will definitely help you (make sure RTH is set as a failsafe)
Not sure if you can get a compass error but if you do be prepared on flying in ATTi
Good luck flying

Please keep away from the power lines and cell towers if applicable. Any crash happened around these will cause massive loss.

Power lines should give no problem interference wise apart from the physical danger of flying into one the frequency of any radio emitions from any power lines is far too low for it to interfere with the drones operation.

I have to agree with susan tho best to just stay away from them at all times.

Hellsgate Posted at 2017-9-19 00:49
Power lines should give no problem interference wise apart from the physical danger of flying into one the frequency of any radio emitions from any power lines is far too low for it to interfere with the drones operation.

Power lines emit magnetic fields and only 60 Hz frequency, which is very far from what drones are using !!  The only problem i would see is that P4P obstacle detectors would not see(detect) the thin electrical lines and crash into it.