Hey guys I'm new here and appologize if this has been covered. Anyhow I'm looking for any ideas as to why I'm consistantly loosing video feed on my P3X at about 1200 ft away. This is maybe 20% of what is advertised so im pretty dissappointed. I am flying mostly on farm land over large forrests. Tried two different locations with the same result. I've verified antenna orientaion. I've made sure hardware decoding is enabled. I'm using IOS. (Ipad air and Iphone6) with a stock apple lightning cable. My firmware is the latest 1.2.6. Also I'm fairly consistantly getting poor radio signal warnings when I'm standing three feet away from the bird while its warming up. Then when I'm lucky and it says good I attempt a flight only to become super frusterated when I loose video feed. I'm at my wits end here as the shots I want are more long distance oriented. Any ideas are super appreciated.  Thank you so much to anyone taking the time to read and consider this post!

How do you have your antennas orientated in relation to the P3? At what altitude? Can you still see the P3 when you lose signal or is it obscured by trees?

I've heard some say they've had issues with distance on the new firmware - I myself haven't.

I'm positioning the antennas so they are parallel to each other with the flats facing me then bent up at about a 45 degree angle. In relation to the P3 I try to rotate my stance as needed in an effort to keep it straight in front of me.  My average flight altitude is roughly 150 feet. This is my first Phantom. I updated the firmware before ever flying it so I have no comparison. Could it be a line of sight thing? I mean from the antenna to the P3. When the P3 gets far enough into the trees the canopy would block the antennas (and my) line of sight. If that were the case, In theory I could go up in altitude and make up for the line of sight loss the farther out I get. Thanks for the response! How far have you been out without issue? In what kind of environment?

Folding them straight up at 90 degrees might be better.  But your problem appears to the transmitter not having LOS with the P3.

I can fly mine over 5km in a rural setting, but that's with LOS as I've said. If I get trees in the way then things change for the worse.

You can try one of the antenna mods out there, but they're costly and you don't know what you'll get. You could have a try with this cheap DIY method http://www.phantompilots.com/thr ... or-phantom-3.47516/And this one is available for purchase http://www.dynamic3dsolutions.com/#!phantom-3/cg70 Again, I have no idea if they will help in your situation.

Thank you for the links. I'm going to give the DIY a try because, why not? I'm also going to look for an unobstructed flight area. Like a coast line or something, for comparison VS deep over the trees. How the heck are you getting 3+ miles in rural where there is likely a good amount of interference? Not that I doubt you. I'm just wondering, are you modded? Nice fish by the way!! Again thanks for the replies.

There is likely to be much less interference in the country than in a built up area. I'm stock set-up. Like I said, it's more the LOS between the radio components. I could go further but I'm at the limits of the battery.
Place several trees, a hill or building in the way and the distance I get drops considerably.

Let me know how you go with the DIY antenna mod, if it helps "punching" through trees?

Get these there cheap and proven to work http://www.dynamic3dsolutions.co ... b-24c6-97c83d1fca3c

bastell Posted at 2015-7-22 17:02
Get these there cheap and proven to work http://www.dynamic3dsolutions.com/#!product-page/cba4/75d67 ...

Did you get some sent to Oz?

If you are not flying light of sight, obstacle between your drone and remote, like trees will degrade your signal strength by 20dB or even more, that means only one sixth distance you can get.

ScottyT Posted at 2015-7-22 17:16
Did you get some sent to Oz?

Nah I got the dbsitelite on the way tho

Scotty where in Oz are you m8? melb here...

This forum and you guys are awesome. Thank you for all the input!

You are flying WAY too low for the distances you want. I have 150 foot pines 300 to 400 feet out and usually have to go up 400-600 (sometimes higher)  feet to get the real deal distances. Stuff in the way kills your distance flying.

UPDATE!
Tonight I constructed my own version of the "Windsail mod" . I also increased my altitude to about 340ft. Happy to report I made it over 3/4 mile out before I had a small video glitch. I got scared and immediately did a 180 and came home. The trip looked amazing heading into the sunset.  Only trouble is I was so nervous about taking it out that far and with tin foil behind the antenna not knowing whats going to happen. I forgot to put the camera back in 4k. I was playing with 1080p@60 earlier so it still looks great. I'm loving the 4k though. Thanks again for all the input guys!

Jaysmusik Posted at 2015-7-23 12:33
UPDATE!
Tonight I constructed my own version of the "Windsail mod" . I also increased my altitude to ...

You can get 5k feet with some elevation and best case scenario. It will come back if u have a good homepoint lock at takeoff. She won't let ya down. ;)

ScottyT Posted at 2015-7-22 15:47
Let me know how you go with the DIY antenna mod, if it helps "punching" through trees?

I didn't go up over the trees like before but tripled the distance I was getting anyways. Here's a link to my test flight.

Jaysmusik Posted at 2015-7-24 07:14
I didn't go up over the trees like before but tripled the distance I was getting anyways. Here's a ...

Nice bro! ;)

Jaysmusik Posted at 2015-7-24 07:14
I didn't go up over the trees like before but tripled the distance I was getting anyways. Here's a  ...

That looks like the areas I fly in. Did you have line of sight the whole way?

i sit about 250ft ( 70m) most of the time and get over 5000ft out line of sight before i tend to crap it and come back, think thats about a mile, never see the reason to go further than this

Bob West Posted at 2015-8-19 06:04
That looks like the areas I fly in. Did you have line of sight the whole way?

No, line of sight was gone at about the half way mark. Dang trees. LOL. I just got to fly on the coast at the beach it was pretty awesome. I didn't do any long range testing though. I was more focused on trying to get the right camera settings and quality shots.