Last weekend was gorgeous, here in the Arizona desert, so I took my nearly new Mavic Pro Platinum out to the 20 acre lot I recently purchased. Prior to this I'd only powered it up, launched in the living room, made a tour of the kitchen and landed. I'm happy to report that everything worked nicely, despite the fact that I was running DJI Go 4 on an Amazon Fire HD 8, which I don't recall being listed as a recommended device. Major challenges I found include the fact that the device screen is invisible in daylight, and DJI Go 4 is utterly useless in the field without a printed manual - there's no such thing as connectivity out here in the boonies, so the online version is of no value. The first I can fix by pitching a tent and flying from inside; the second I can't do anything about, other than to offer my assistance with creating a pdf version; I don't have much free time, but I do own a copy of Adobe Acrobat.


Since the Ground Station product isn't available on any device I'm willing to own (aka, Apple), I plan next to purchase Litchi for my Android device, and try navigating waypoints uploaded from my handheld Garmin eTrex 30+. I'd like to be able to launch my Mavic, traverse the perimeter of my property, and view what's going on when I can't be there. I have a base where I stay that's just about a mile away, so I should be able to send it off from there on an autonomous flight plan, collect video, and send it back to home base before the battery dies. That's my hope, at least.


My next planned use for the product is to replace a spotting scope at the rifle range. I'm a certified rifle and pistol instructor, but I'm 63 years old and my eyes aren't as acute as they were years ago. It can be a pain in the hiney to call a cease fire (I'm also a range safety officer, and can do that) just to walk downrange to safely check on scoring. I look forward to being able to send my faithful little robot down to the target line, and report back what I or my student managed to hit. Of course, should some idiot take a pot shot at my Mavic, I'll have to violate one of my first rules of safe shooting by taking out the moron who did so, but hopefully that will never happen.

The only issue I can report is that I got a brief message about lost connection, but it was displayed and erased so fast that it was impossible to read. This was at a range of about 600' from my control point, on flat land, and with no trees or buildings. I have no idea why it happened, and no way to predict if it will ever happen again. So far, so good. When I figure out how to actually record something, I'll post some video.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. The connection may lost if they could not get the maximum receiving surface. Please try to adjust the antennas if the similar issue appears. Hppay flying!

Loved this post of yours, along with your avatar.