Broke my third-party UAV / drone, so I'm looking to make the jump to a DJI (probably a Mavick 2 / Mavic Pro 2 and a Mavick Mini)... I'm not too happy with the host / home country of DJI (there's not a lot of trust from me for this particular country, for reasons not relevant to this post), but they (DJI) seem to be the best by a pretty big margin, so I'm "spoilt for choice" as they say.


Anyway, from what I can tell, DJI places restrictions on UAVs / drones in certain countries, and those are based on the respective Federal Communications Commission ("FCC"), Conformité Européenne ("CE")  or State Radio Regulatory Commission ("SRRC") guidelines / policies /  legislation... The thing is, NONE of that applies to Australia and the footnotes on the DJI product pages do NOT reflect this.


The relevant Australian equivalent is the Regulatory Compliance Mark (RCM).

So my question is, how are the specifications for (DJI) UAVs / drones bought from an Australian distributor changed or restricted when operated in Australia?


Yes I am aware of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority guidelines and legislation for operating UAVs / drones in Australia (most of which are common sense, anyway)... I'm not interested in those, just how the specifications on DJI's website are changed based on products bought from an Australian distributor to operate in Australia.

I think if you buy the M2P you'll get the FCC version and the Mini ships as the CE version.  

DAFlys Posted at 1-8 01:54
I think if you buy the M2P you'll get the FCC version and the Mini ships as the CE version.

Do you have a source on this, or can anyone confirm this?

I have also sent a request to DJI seeking clarification on this, by the way - I will post their response when I get it in a couple of days...

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-8 02:03
Do you have a source on this, or can anyone confirm this?

I have also sent a request to DJI seeking clarification on this, by the way - I will post their response when I get it in a couple of days...

There have been posts on the forum here about this.

See the one for confirmation on the Mini - https://forum.dji.com/thread-201433-1-1.html

DAFlys Posted at 1-8 02:15
There have been posts on the forum here about this.

Just so you know, the information found at your link is the opposite of what you originally said... According to the screenshot, Australia has the MT1SS5 version of the Mavick Mini - which is the FCC-compliant version, according to the footnotes on the product page (the CE version has the MT1SD25 model number, according to the same footnotes).

Should be interesting to see if the Mavick Pro 2 is also the FCC compliant version when DJI get back to me, because there seems to be an awfully big difference between the capabilities of the FCC-compliant version and the CE-compliant version.

So if some or all of the DJI products sold in Australia are the FCC-compliant versions, is that a hardware configuration or a firmware configuration?

It'd be a real shame to buy an FCC-compliant version, only to have DJI change it at some point later on because someone, somewhere has done something stupid with their UAV / drone (which always seems to be the case when we get nice things)...

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-8 03:13
Just so you know, the information found at your link is the opposite of what you originally said... According to the screenshot, Australia has the MT1SS5 version of the Mavick Mini - which is the FCC-compliant version, according to the footnotes on the product page (the CE version has the MT1SD25 model number, according to the same footnotes).

Should be interesting to see if the Mavick Pro 2 is also the FCC compliant version when DJI get back to me, because there seems to be an awfully big difference between the capabilities of the FCC-compliant version and the CE-compliant version.

The Mavic 2 pro is the same hardware regardless of where you buy it, it uses GPS to adjust its power/frequencies at start up.  Whereas the Mini there are three hardware versions FCC/CE/Japan.

Sorry if I got them the wrong way round.

DAFlys Posted at 1-8 05:23
The Mavic 2 pro is the same hardware regardless of where you buy it, it uses GPS to adjust its power/frequencies at start up.  Whereas the Mini there are three hardware versions FCC/CE/Japan.

Sorry if I got them the wrong way round.

So DJI got back to me, apparently Australian products conform to the "CE" policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 2.4GHz frequencies, and the FCC policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 5.8GHz frequencies... However for most countries outside of the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation (law), the power of the remotes is restricted based on local legislation (law) in said countries, if said country mandates tighter restrictions than the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation mandates.

In other words, their products using 2.4GHz frequencies will be restricted to the CE standards in Australia and their products using 5.8GHz frequencies will be restricted to FCC standards in Australia unless those standards will allow the UAV / drone to operate outside of the legislation (law) here, in which case they will be restricted to whatever is necessary to comply with local legislation (law) - such as restricting the power of the remote enough that it will not allow you to fly above 393FT / 120M (the height restriction for most UAV / drone users in Australia).

K.I.S.S. - Restricted to comply with Australian legislation (law) first, and CE / FCC policies / guidelines / legislation (law) second, as indicated above.

Screenshot of actual reply is below, for the Community's reference:

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-8 11:01
So DJI got back to me, apparently Australian products conform to the "CE" policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 2.4GHz frequencies, and the FCC policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 5.8GHz frequencies... However for most countries outside of the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation (law), the power of the remotes is restricted based on local legislation (law) in said countries, if said country mandates tighter restrictions than the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation mandates.

In other words, their products using 2.4GHz frequencies will be restricted to the CE standards in Australia and their products using 5.8GHz frequencies will be restricted to FCC standards in Australia unless those standards will allow the UAV / drone to operate outside of the legislation (law) here, in which case they will be restricted to whatever is necessary to comply with local legislation (law) - such as restricting the power of the remote enough that it will not allow you to fly above 393FT / 120M (the height restriction for most UAV / drone users in Australia).

Nothing but consistent.

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-8 11:01
So DJI got back to me, apparently Australian products conform to the "CE" policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 2.4GHz frequencies, and the FCC policies / guidelines / legislation (law) for 5.8GHz frequencies... However for most countries outside of the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation (law), the power of the remotes is restricted based on local legislation (law) in said countries, if said country mandates tighter restrictions than the FCC / CE / SRRC guidelines / policies / legislation mandates.

In other words, their products using 2.4GHz frequencies will be restricted to the CE standards in Australia and their products using 5.8GHz frequencies will be restricted to FCC standards in Australia unless those standards will allow the UAV / drone to operate outside of the legislation (law) here, in which case they will be restricted to whatever is necessary to comply with local legislation (law) - such as restricting the power of the remote enough that it will not allow you to fly above 393FT / 120M (the height restriction for most UAV / drone users in Australia).

in which case they will be restricted to whatever is necessary to comply with local legislation (law) - such as restricting the power of the remote enough that it will not allow you to fly above 393FT / 120M (the height restriction for most UAV / drone users in Australia).
The height you can fly to has nothing to do with the transmitter power.
You'll find that DJI drones can easily fly much further than Australian rules and much further than you'll need them to, regardless of whether they use CE or FCC standards.
The restrictions you are concerned about don't exist.

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-8 02:03
Do you have a source on this, or can anyone confirm this?

I have also sent a request to DJI seeking clarification on this, by the way - I will post their response when I get it in a couple of days...

Are you planning on buying a DJI drone in Australia and flying it in the U.S or another home country ?

DJI does not have an international warranty, so any warranty claim will have to be sent back to Australia, which is messy to say the least, unless you live here.
Australia is very far away from the rest of the world and the shipping costs reflect this


I'd buy in your home country even if costs a little bit extra, it maybe cheaper in the long run if you have problems
The Mini is a bigger risk at the moment, there are still a few issues to be sorted out and fundamentally it is underpowered
Being the cheapest DJI drone it also lacks features to keep the cost down, if you want a compact drone the Mavic Air is the unit to go for.

Labroides Posted at 1-8 15:32
in which case they will be restricted to whatever is necessary to comply with local legislation (law) - such as restricting the power of the remote enough that it will not allow you to fly above 393FT / 120M (the height restriction for most UAV / drone users in Australia).
The height you can fly to has nothing to do with the transmitter power.
You'll find that DJI drones can easily fly much further than Australian rules and much further than you'll need them to, regardless of whether they use CE or FCC standards.

@Labroides , You're saying that any UAV / drone I buy from DJI will not be restricted? That it will be able to achieve its maximum height (e.g. 5000M up) when used in Australia?

That sounds pretty unlikely, and is in stark contrast to what everyone else is saying...


@Lannes , I am in Australia and most likely, the UAV / drone will be bought from an Australian distributor...

Gregory.Opera Posted at 1-9 03:22
@Labroides , You're saying that any UAV / drone I buy from DJI will not be restricted? That it will be able to achieve its maximum height (e.g. 5000M up) when used in Australia?

That sounds pretty unlikely, and is in stark contrast to what everyone else is saying...

@Labroides , You're saying that any UAV / drone I buy from DJI will not be restricted? That it will be able to achieve its maximum height (e.g. 5000M up) when used in Australia?

That's not what I said in post #10.
Read it again carefully.
I think you've made some incorrect assumptions about what is restricted on a drone you might buy.
The 5000m you are thinking of is not the height you can climb that was higher than 5000m and tried fly up there, you might have trouble in the thin air.

DJI drones are hardwired to only fly to 500 metres above the launch point.
The only restriction on distance is the physical limit that the controller's signal will penetrate.
That will be less in an urban environment and more in an interference-free environment.
But they will easily fly several kilometres and likely further than you would need to.

I've since bought a Mavic Mini and I can confirm that it is able to reach 500 meters (well, I hit 498 meters, but it was an especially windy day)... I actually wasn't trying to go that high; I had changed my settings without paying too much attention to what I was changing and when I accidentally went several hundred meters up, I thought "Why not?" (I was in an area that doesn't normally see much air traffic).

Pretty sure I'm not going to be spending much time up at 500 meters - for one thing, the Mavic Mini is pretty sensitive to wind and about five seconds after I hit 498 meters, I was getting constant wind warnings - but it's handy to know that my drone is actually capable of this in Australia...

Later when I was playing around with the settings (and actually paying attention to what I was doing), I noticed that it gave me a warning when increasing the altitude - something to the affect of "If you exceed the height stipulated in local law, you do so at your own risk"... This is the way it should be - warnings that DJI are not responsible if you exceed local laws, rather than actually restricting devices.

Spoilt for choice does not mean what you think it means. Work on your English, then maybe you can read websites and find out information instead of getting others to spoon feed it to you.

djiuser_I0WoTA99KodX Posted at 9-26 07:05
Spoilt for choice does not mean what you think it means. Work on your English, then maybe you can read websites and find out information instead of getting others to spoon feed it to you.

Trolls are gonna troll...