fansfbf708c8
lvl.1
Flight distance : 76421 ft
United States
Offline
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Hi all Pilots
First post on this forum and this is specific to the Phantom 3 SE.
I received the P3SE in December and have been flying a good few hours now. I have found the following annoyances with the P3SE and software:
1- I have found that my range is extremely poor. My last attempt was with a very clear line of sight on a nice day at the beach. My maximum range was around 1700ft before RTH was triggered. This was with no signal booster installed. When I put on a parabolic antenna mount (plastic thing that can be bought for a few £ on amazon), my range actually reduced to less than 1600ft before RTH triggered. I have since learned that the reason for such poor range is local (UK/EU) limitations on transmitter signal strength. In the UK, we are restricted to CE mode and do not have FCC available (this is the case if using the latest FW release). As far as I am aware, FCC regulations (like in the USA) allow transmitting signals of up to 10 times more power than CE regulations (Europe) and this may go a long way to explaining the reason for such pitiful Phantom range.
2- I researched a good lot into Litchi as I would like to have the ability to fully map out missions before going on site. I was very excited and forked out the cash to install the app on my phone (HTC 10). What I didn't realise at the time was that Litchi is not compatible with the P3SE (yet, but probably never) as DJI has not released the SDK for this model of drone. When I read that Litchi was compatible with Phantom 3 4K, i stupidly assumed they meant the Phantom 3 SE (i wasn't aware that the 4k was a different model). It looks like the P3SE is nearly the only model not supported in Litchi and that for me is very annoying (there's not even a Phantom 3 SE topic available within these forums).
So, in follow up to my life story, I have these questions:
A- On the P3SE controller, does the external antenna communicate with the a/ your phone/tablet only b/ the drone only or c/ both the drone and your phone/tablet? If the answer is a/ your phone/tablet only, this would explain why the parabolic extender made no improvement to range (yes, I did have it pointing the right direction).
B- Would adding external antennas in place of the two internal ones make any difference, if transmitter power is still restricted by CE regulations?
C- Has anyone had provable results of improving range with P3SE (not caring about other models as they use different comm setups)?
D- Will DJI release the SDK for P3SE so that we may use 3rd party apps like Litchi?
I will probably have more questions but thought I would leave it at that for now.
Thanks in advance for all responses.
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