Was wondering if anyone else in the Northeast noticed fewer satellites than normal today.

The usual 16-17 was only 10-11 today. Had to actually take off on visual, as five minutes had passed and still on Vision mode (at ground level).

Once I got above the trees, on relatively clear day, only 10-11 satellites. 4-6 on the ground.

The last time I flew in overcast, had at least 15 satellites, which was Monday.

Have some of the satellites been shut down for maintenance?

Have some of the satellites been shut down for maintenance?
Here's the relevant info:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=constellationStatus

Because of the orbits of the sats, the number of sats visible anywhere will be varying all the time so the numbers you mentioned aren't unusual.
With your drone also receiving data from the Russian GLONASS sats, your drone should always (if it's out i the open) have plenty more sates than it needs any time anyway.

I flew my P3P yesterday, not very high, maybe 200 ft, and remember seeing 13 sats.  This was east coast, mid atlantic, around dusk.  

Labroides Posted at 8-30 20:01
Have some of the satellites been shut down for maintenance?
Here's the relevant info:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=constellationStatus

While reading, the following sentence also caught my eye, "which will remove GPS satellite plane/slot and clock information from the Operational Advisory message." I know the GPS in our vehicle gets it's time and date from the satellites. Are they going to cease providing that information?

I have been flying my P4P v2 for 2 years now, and never encountered this low number of satellites. I usually fly at least once a week during the summer months and acquisition rarely took longer than one minute on the ground. I should get faster acquisition now that I have removed seven oak trees from my yard and have more open sky, so only getting 4-6 birds after five minutes wait was notable.

Mark Weiss Posted at 8-31 08:01
While reading, the following sentence also caught my eye, "which will remove GPS satellite plane/slot and clock information from the Operational Advisory message." I know the GPS in our vehicle gets it's time and date from the satellites. Are they going to cease providing that information?

I have been flying my P4P v2 for 2 years now, and never encountered this low number of satellites. I usually fly at least once a week during the summer months and acquisition rarely took longer than one minute on the ground. I should get faster acquisition now that I have removed seven oak trees from my yard and have more open sky, so only getting 4-6 birds after five minutes wait was notable.

Are they going to cease providing that information?
No ... time is an integral part of GPS.

Were  you in a new location - is it possible there was some kind of interference. Anything in the 1.2 to 1.5 GHz range can either directly interfere of desensitize your receiver.

Smashey1 Posted at 8-31 09:26
Were  you in a new location - is it possible there was some kind of interference. Anything in the 1.2 to 1.5 GHz range can either directly interfere of desensitize your receiver.

No, launching from my house as usual. We are 1400' from a broadcast tower, but that's been there since 1959.

Mark Weiss Posted at 8-31 09:41
No, launching from my house as usual. We are 1400' from a broadcast tower, but that's been there since 1959.

It's completely normal for the numbers of sats to vary because of the way they orbit around the earth as it's spinning.

Mark Weiss be sure your vehicle or others are not nearby ...

JetSam Posted at 8-31 22:09
Mark Weiss be sure your vehicle or others are not nearby ...

Mark Weiss be sure your vehicle or others are not nearby ...
Why?
Do GPS receivers not work properly when close to cars?
Of course they don't, they work perfectly well even inside cars as long as the antenna has a clear sky view.

Do GPS receivers not work properly when close to cars?
Of course they don't, they work perfectly well even inside cars as long as the antenna has a clear sky view.

I do not talk about satellites, being close to vehicles can increase certain risks when flying, simply as a recommendation

JetSam Posted at 9-1 02:59
Do GPS receivers not work properly when close to cars?
Of course they don't, they work perfectly well even inside cars as long as the antenna has a clear sky view.

Being close to a car wasn't affecting his satellite reception.
Indeed there was no problem with his reception anyway.
His numbers were completely normal.

Labroides Posted at 9-1 05:09
Being close to a car wasn't affecting his satellite reception.
Indeed there was no problem with his reception anyway.
His numbers were completely normal.

you are a great satellites connoisseur ...  

JetSam Posted at 9-1 09:07
you are a great satellites connoisseur ...

I should be.
I've been using GPS professionally for over 20 years.

I've only had this drone for 2 years, and flew pretty regularly during summers and never saw this few satellites before, so I thought it was unusual. This is the first time I had to wait more than a minute for GPS lock, out of scores of flights with this particular craft.
Next time I fly, I will note the number of satellites and the time taken to acquire.

I took her up for a flight a couple of weeks ago and again, low satellite count. Barely 7 on the ground with bare trees. Got about 11-12 when hovering above treetops. This was on a clear deep blue sky day.
Has anyone else in the northeast noticed a decrease in satellite count since 2020?

Mark Weiss Posted at 4-19 12:49
I took her up for a flight a couple of weeks ago and again, low satellite count. Barely 7 on the ground with bare trees. Got about 11-12 when hovering above treetops. This was on a clear deep blue sky day.
Has anyone else in the northeast noticed a decrease in satellite count since 2020?

Are we back here again?

My P2 had 10 sats excluding glonass earlier this year.  I haven't noticed any sat probs.  

Mark The Droner Posted at 4-20 11:16
My P2 had 10 sats excluding glonass earlier this year.  I haven't noticed any sat probs.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ebVx04ym5k

This is the second year in a row where I'm unable to get 17 or more satellites from my location. Last year, I could assume it's just a temporary issue with the sats, but here again this year, it's low. The aircraft tends to wander quite a bit now when hovering and is harder to control at low altitudes than it used to be when I could get 9-11 sats at ground level. It also is taking a long time to acquire enough sats to get out of visual mode and into GPS mode.
I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps the GPS receiver has degraded some over time. I've flown this particular a/c since May of 2018 and all of that time, it's been a reliable flyer. Either the sat count is down over the northeast US, or my GPS receiver isn't up to scratch anymore.

Mark Weiss Posted at 4-21 07:15
This is the second year in a row where I'm unable to get 17 or more satellites from my location. Last year, I could assume it's just a temporary issue with the sats, but here again this year, it's low. The aircraft tends to wander quite a bit now when hovering and is harder to control at low altitudes than it used to be when I could get 9-11 sats at ground level. It also is taking a long time to acquire enough sats to get out of visual mode and into GPS mode.
I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps the GPS receiver has degraded some over time. I've flown this particular a/c since May of 2018 and all of that time, it's been a reliable flyer. Either the sat count is down over the northeast US, or my GPS receiver isn't up to scratch anymore.

Either the sat count is down over the northeast US, or my GPS receiver isn't up to scratch anymore.
The number of satellites isn't down and there are no sats permanently positioned over the northeast US.
All the sats are all over the earth, like a cage around the earth.
They are orbiting and the earth is rotating inside the cage of orbiting sats.
All day long, the number of sats and the sats which are visible from your location are changing.

You've mentioned that you are flying from where trees block a lot of the sky.
That might be all thats happening.
You can check by:
1.  Get a GPS app for your phone and see if it shows similar low sat numbers (make sure you are looking at the same kinds of sats)

2.  Flying from a large, clear area with unobstructed skyview and see if that's any different

Labroides Posted at 4-21 15:52
Either the sat count is down over the northeast US, or my GPS receiver isn't up to scratch anymore.
The number of satellites isn't down and there are no sats permanently positioned over the northeast US.
All the sats are all over the earth, like a cage around the earth.

All good ideas here. However, it would be nice if I had the phone GPS numbers in 2018 as a reference. Measuring now would just tell me the phone can see X number of satellites.

My tree situation should have improved here too. I have had seven large oaks cut down last May, so I've quite a bit of open sky that I did not have in 2018-19. In those years, even fully in bloom, I had no trouble getting enough satellites to launch the drone. Now with 7 fewer trees and all other trees not bloomed yet, the drone is acquiring fewer satellites than in the prior two years.

Once the drone is above the tree line, I would think that needing a large open field to test would be irrelevant, as at 150' altitude, I am also seeing significantly fewer satellites on a clear day. 17-18 sats was common at altitude in 2018-19. Now, 11-14 is the best I can get. Seems off to me.
UPDATE:
I downloaded Satellite Tracker for my Note 10+ phone and I can see 8 satellite orbit lines within 150kM radius of my location. Seems low. Next time I'm in the SUV, I'm goin to try the technical menu on the in dash GPS and see how many sats it sees. Usually that device would see over a dozen.

Mark Weiss Posted at 4-22 08:32
All good ideas here. However, it would be nice if I had the phone GPS numbers in 2018 as a reference. Measuring now would just tell me the phone can see X number of satellites.

My tree situation should have improved here too. I have had seven large oaks cut down last May, so I've quite a bit of open sky that I did not have in 2018-19. In those years, even fully in bloom, I had no trouble getting enough satellites to launch the drone. Now with 7 fewer trees and all other trees not bloomed yet, the drone is acquiring fewer satellites than in the prior two years.

The number of sats in your sky (wherever you are) is changing all the time and an hour or two later they are all different sats that you are viewing.

Here's the official sat status data:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=constellationStatus
See ... there are plenty of them up there (and that's just the US GPS sats so you can add the Russian Glonass sats and there are even more.

I was in the Costco parking lot, about 4 miles from home and went into the GPS menu on our car's navigation system and it looks like only 10 satellites there.

I just booted up the P4P on the ground in an open space in my yard. The trees have no leaves on them yet. I got 7 satellites. Then I took it up to the roof where there's a pretty wide open view of the sky. I got reliably 8 satellites, occasionally going to 9, 19, 8, 7, 9, 10, 11, 9, 10, 8, 9 and so on, fluctuating.

These numbers are lower than what I had on the ground with full foliage in 2018 at this location.

Mark Weiss Posted at 4-23 13:24
[view_image]

I was in the Costco parking lot, about 4 miles from home and went into the GPS menu on our car's navigation system and it looks like only 10 satellites there.

I was in the Costco parking lot, about 4 miles from home and went into the GPS menu on our car's navigation system and it looks like only 10 satellites there.
Three points
1. You didn't have the Phantom there to compare it's reception in the same place at the same time, so that's no use.
2.  Your car GPS is only receiving US GPS sats  and not Russian Glonass sats so you couldn't compare anyway.
3.  Those numbers are about right for the number of US GPS sats that would be expected

These numbers are lower than what I had on the ground with full foliage in 2018 at this location.
I've explained and explained that the numbers are changing from hour to hour,

You can't compare numbers from one time with another.

I just booted up the P4P on the ground in an open space in my yard. The trees have no leaves on them yet. I got 7 satellites. Then I took it up to the roof where there's a pretty wide open view of the sky. I got reliably 8 satellites, occasionally going to 9, 19, 8, 7, 9, 10, 11, 9, 10, 8, 9 and so on, fluctuating.
If your Phantom 4 pro was in an area where the skyview was not blocked by trees, terrain buildings, roofs etc and only gets 7-10 that sounds like a problem with the drone's GPS receiver.
It should be reliable getting numbers in the range of 16-20, sometimes a little more or less, all year round anywhere, any time.

Labroides Posted at 4-23 15:10
I was in the Costco parking lot, about 4 miles from home and went into the GPS menu on our car's navigation system and it looks like only 10 satellites there.
Three points
1. You didn't have the Phantom there to compare it's reception in the same place at the same time, so that's no use.

I'll have to say Labroides, I put my P4v2 outside for a sat check yesterday, and only received 7-8 sats as well. Maybe Mark Weiss and I live on a different planet.
Satellite Tracking                            How it Works

ATJ Posted at 4-24 02:58
I'll have to say Labroides, I put my P4v2 outside for a sat check yesterday, and only received 7-8 sats as well. Maybe Mark Weiss and I live on a different planet.
Satellite Tracking                            How it Works

I put my P4v2 outside for a sat check yesterday, and only received 7-8 sats as well.
Without any explanation of whether the sky view was blocked by trees, buildings, terrain or other obstacles, that is meaningless.

How many sats do you get when flying 100 ft up?

Labroides Posted at 4-24 06:01
I put my P4v2 outside for a sat check yesterday, and only received 7-8 sats as well.
Without any explanation of whether the sky view was blocked by trees, buildings, terrain or other obstacles, that is meaningless.

Not meaningless when I used to get 10-12 in the same location.

ATJ Posted at 4-24 06:25
Not meaningless when I used to get 10-12 in the same location.

Thanks ATJ. Perhaps something IS different with the satellites this past year or so and unless both our drones are defective, we're seeing the same thing.

The important terms here are trend and reliably. I see a trend of fewer sats since 2020. I know they change hour to hour, but in past years when I could reliably get 11-12 or more on the ground and 16-18 in the sky, where now I get about 20% fewer every time I fly, there's something different going on here.

Anyone else notice a drop in satellite count since 2020 began?

ATJ Posted at 4-24 06:25
Not meaningless when I used to get 10-12 in the same location.

It's completely meaningless as I've gone to some length to explain in several posts above.
And more so now, since you've had a chance to come clean and give a few details, but didn't see fit to do so.

This animation shows how the sats are orbiting around the earth while it rotates inside the satellite's orbital paths.


But the animation is simplified and only shows 24 sats.
To make it match the sats currently orbiting, you need to add more as there are now 31 operational GPS sats + 23 operational Glonass sats making a total of 54 sats up there for your P4 pro to receive signals from.

Wherever and whenever you look, there are way more sats in your sky than needed.
If your drone is only receiving   7-8  out of 53 satellites which are orbiting in an array designed to provide optimum coverage all over the world, then your GPS receiver's skyview is partially blocked by obstacles or there's something wrong with it.

Mark Weiss Posted at 4-24 14:26
Thanks ATJ. Perhaps something IS different with the satellites this past year or so and unless both our drones are defective, we're seeing the same thing.

The important terms here are trend and reliably. I see a trend of fewer sats since 2020. I know they change hour to hour, but in past years when I could reliably get 11-12 or more on the ground and 16-18 in the sky, where now I get about 20% fewer every time I fly, there's something different going on here.

Your Welcome Mark, I wonder if the Software and Firmware updates of the past year have anything to do with this?

ATJ Posted at 4-25 03:39
Your Welcome Mark, I wonder if the Software and Firmware updates of the past year have anything to do with this?

Your Welcome Mark, I wonder if the Software and Firmware updates of the past year have anything to do with this?

And you are the only two chumps affected ... that's entirely logical.
Actually most of the sats are covering the southern hemisphere, just for me.

Labroides Posted at 4-25 05:46
Your Welcome Mark, I wonder if the Software and Firmware updates of the past year have anything to do with this?

And you are the only two chumps affected ... that's entirely logical.

Your GEO ZONE MAP must be the same as mine and Mark's, Labroides.

An Adult’s Guide to Social Skills

ATJ Posted at 4-25 06:22
Your GEO ZONE MAP must be the same as mine and Mark's, Labroides.

An Adult’s Guide to Social Skills

Social skills ?
They are no use when attempting to discuss anything with obtuse lummoxes like you two.
You still haven't answered the questions I asked earlier.

What about me?  Aren't I an obtuse lummox too?  :-D  

There's a rumor goin' 'round that this AC had trouble with a Sat fix.



Here's a flight from last summer showing GPS and Glonass with a total of 20 sats.  Shoot ahead to the 12 min mark.



Here's a flight with my P2V+ and I couldn't get my 6th GPS sat.  Had to abort.  To be fair, there's a known conflict with the GPS receiver and the wifi module in these particular drones.  But I've never been unable to get a 6th sat before.



Here's my P2V with 13 GPS sats, no Glonass.  Shoot ahead to the 3 min mark.



Good luck

ATJ Posted at 4-25 03:39
Your Welcome Mark, I wonder if the Software and Firmware updates of the past year have anything to do with this?

I only did one software update in June 2018, after which I learned about geofencing and didn't want to risk crippling the aircraft with future updates. Besides, it was flying reliably until 2020, with 17-18 sats on every flights, even on cloudy days.
If the resident "expert" here were right, I would be seeing varying numbers of satellites in 2018-19 and 2020 would be no different, and thus I wouldn't be posting this thread. But the fact is, if I were to plot the number of sats acquired on a graph since May 2018, you would see a 20% drop in the vertical axis of the graph in 2020, with no return to 2018 levels.

My conclusion is that either something about the constellation changed, or at least two of our aircrafts's GPS receivers have degraded. Perhaps the chemicals in the storage case's foam are outgassing and entering the drone and degrading some components inside, as I keep my drone stored in the backpack when not in use.