Hey folks,
One of my biggest fears with my new M2 is I'll fly it out of RC range or some other weird RF thing will happen and the signal will just drop without notice (but hopefully execute a graceful RTH). Does the DJI Fly app give you low signal warning either audible or on screen? At what point does this usually happen? During some of my flights I've had the 5 signal bars drop to 3 orange but them come back to 4 or 5 white and then back to orange again. I've read some people have flown way beyond this point without issue and others have had complete signal loss far closer. This makes me nervous. I read through the manual but no explanation about what the bars really mean and if one should not fly down to to the bare minimum one bar? What is considered "pushing it"?

Thoughts and experiences?

Dave

When you do not see your drone any more, its time to bring it back a bit. Do not forget VLOS and you have no problems with signal streangth and loss o signal. This is my best experience.

kyalami Posted at 9-1 09:38
When you do not see your drone any more, its time to bring it back a bit. Do not forget VLOS and you have no problems with signal streangth and loss o signal. This is my best experience.

Well, the M2 is so tiny and quiet. For me it's hard sometimes to regain VLOS as soon as I take my eyes off the UAV to look at the screen to frame the shot or video for anything a few hundred feet or more even though I may still hear it. It's not like one my big old RC planes Thanks for the input though.

Some people are so caught up on technical rules they can't see the trees in the forest.
I have bad eyesight, I can fly 100 yards and be BVLOS ... line-of-sight, does not mean your eyes can focus on the object, that would be 'in sight'.
Line-of-sight, means, know about where your quadcopter is, because if a chopper or plane appear, you need to drop altitude to be clear of them.
I could argue this in court ... doesn't mean I'd win, but there are definitions of terms for a reason.

NickelPlate Posted at 9-1 09:52
Well, the M2 is so tiny and quiet. For me it's hard sometimes to regain VLOS as soon as I take my eyes off the UAV to look at the screen to frame the shot or video for anything a few hundred feet or more even though I may still hear it. It's not like one my big old RC planes Thanks for the input though.

I know the feeling. I have the same problems many times when there are some dark clouds and I look down at the screen and then when I look up again, I do not see the drone even 200m away. I then have to look at the map view and the direction the drone faces and steer it towards me. As I have the Mavic 2 Pro I do not know if you can see the same thing on the Mini.

NickelPlate Posted at 9-1 09:52
Well, the M2 is so tiny and quiet. For me it's hard sometimes to regain VLOS as soon as I take my eyes off the UAV to look at the screen to frame the shot or video for anything a few hundred feet or more even though I may still hear it. It's not like one my big old RC planes Thanks for the input though.

NP:
95% of the members here fly beyond VLOS at times. Don't worry too much about that. If it goes out of communication range for any reason for more than about 10 seconds, it will bring itself back safely if there are no strong headwinds. Just make sure you have previously set the RTH altitude high enough to avoid any obstacles. When I am in a new area, I first fly the drone straight up to maybe 100 feet and turn "360" while watching the screen for any near objects above the horizon. Keep going up till you see no more of those and set the RTH altitude to at least that height.

p.s. The drone does not know how far above the ground it is when about 30 feet or more high (sensor range max, varies with model), only the approximate height above the launch point.

Typically you will regain control and view before the drone comes back very far anyway.

It always make me a bit nervious when flying one of my drones beyong VLOS, but I am getting used to it over the last 1.5 years ;-)

kyalami Posted at 9-1 10:05
I know the feeling. I have the same problems many times when there are some dark clouds and I look down at the screen and then when I look up again, I do not see the drone even 200m away. I then have to look at the map view and the direction the drone faces and steer it towards me. As I have the Mavic 2 Pro I do not know if you can see the same thing on the Mini.

" I do not know if you can see the same thing on the Mini."

Yes, he can.

Hi Dave,

loss of signal can be caused for several reasons. How you point the antenna`s of the RC, what is in between (trees, concrete buildings, etc), other radiowaves, ...
They can be momentary and you gain reception again. Before you send your drone out, always wait for the confirmation of the RTH set.
I had a disconnect with my first drone, a Mavic pro (first edition) in iceland.  The craft was in VLOS and when I gained control again, it was already flying towards me.
Never had problems with my M2P or Mini 2.

Do some checks before you fly out:
- check for damaged props
- check warning messages like "compass calibration", ...
- check the drone sets his RTH point
- check if it drifts when you hover in front of you

I had no RC experience when I started to fly a drone in 2017. I'm not into RC. For me it's mainly for photographing. In the time flying DJI drones, I feel they are quite safe if you're just be sensible.
I think flying an RC model is much more difficult than flying a DJI drone.

Hello there Dave. Good day and thank you for reaching out. Just a reminder that being able to actually see your DJI drone,  without the use of any visual aids, binoculars is considered as Visual Line of Sight ( VLOS ). If you can not longer see the said drone in flight, that is simply beyond your VLOS. I would highly recommend to follow the rules and regulations when flying your DJI Drones to avoid an untoward incidents. Thank you and have a safe flight always.  

I like when Stephen used the word "untoward", very classy ;-) But the word "an" should be followed with a singular word like "incident" not "incidents". Close, but no cigar ;-) JK

GaryDoug Posted at 9-1 21:59
I like when Stephen used the word "untoward", very classy ;-) But the word "an" should be followed with a singular word like "incident" not "incidents". Close, but no cigar ;-) JK

Could have just been a typo, ie, "an" should have been "any".
But then there's the translation barrier, to be fair, I think they do quite well in that respect, prob better than me and I am from England lol

GaryDoug Posted at 9-1 19:16
" I do not know if you can see the same thing on the Mini."

Yes, he can.

OK thanks.

Hi!
Something about month ago I Was trying to fly in the forest. I have found area with less branches above to "see" satelites. Drone has set homepoint properly. I wanted to set RTH altitude as low as possible because path was straight and i din't want the drone goes up to branches when returnig home but the minimum altitude is 15m so in this case was too much but I has no choice. Everything was stable, 15-17 satelites was "connected", RC signal MAX so I started to fly forward with really slow speed and no more then 15m from HP dron has lost connection with RC (100% signal to 0% signal just in seconds) and starts RTH prcedure.
Fortunately I was close and somehow RC regain connection and I was able to pause RTH, in the other way drone probably would crash in to the barnches.
The same day but in different location (not in forest ) I have similar sytuation. From this time I was't flying so I don't know it was Friday the thirteenth isue or someting with RC antennas or app.

So any advice I can give  you is to think and try to plan before start and try to keep calm in emergency situations.

GaryDoug Posted at 9-1 19:07
NP:
95% of the members here fly beyond VLOS at times. Don't worry too much about that. If it goes out of communication range for any reason for more than about 10 seconds, it will bring itself back safely if there are no strong headwinds. Just make sure you have previously set the RTH altitude high enough to avoid any obstacles. When I am in a new area, I first fly the drone straight up to maybe 100 feet and turn "360" while watching the screen for any near objects above the horizon. Keep going up till you see no more of those and set the RTH altitude to at least that height.

Hey GD thanks for the info.  I get a bit nervous too more so probably because I'm a new pilot with this thing and don't have enough flights under my belt to have the confidence level of a seasoned veteran. Thanks for the tips though about scanning the skies for tall objects. I've been doing that since the beginning and especially keeping an eye out for power lines they're hard to see.

ManiekWwa Posted at 9-2 04:14
Hi!
Something about month ago I Was trying to fly in the forest. I have found area with less branches above to "see" satelites. Drone has set homepoint properly. I wanted to set RTH altitude as low as possible because path was straight and i din't want the drone goes up to branches when returnig home but the minimum altitude is 15m so in this case was too much but I has no choice. Everything was stable, 15-17 satelites was "connected", RC signal MAX so I started to fly forward with really slow speed and no more then 15m from HP dron has lost connection with RC (100% signal to 0% signal just in seconds) and starts RTH prcedure.
Fortunately I was close and somehow RC regain connection and I was able to pause RTH, in the other way drone probably would crash in to the barnches.

Those are the kind of stories that scare me most. Those unexplained momentary losses of signal, video feed etc. Being an EE I know all too well that RF interference is black magic and can rear its ugly head at anytime without warning.

Good tip on planning. I try to fly with a purpose in mind. Once I get a particular area or place I want to fly to I've been using Google maps to develop flight plans on where I'm going to park my car and then what flight path I'm going to take, what the flight distances are , what I'm going to do when I get there and how I'm going to fly back to the home point. I found a couple of really useful apps called "UAV forecast" and "Windy" to check the local conditions before deciding to even make the attempt.

NickelPlate Posted at 9-2 05:21
Those are the kind of stories that scare me most. Those unexplained momentary losses of signal, video feed etc. Being an EE I know all too well that RF interference is black magic and can rear its ugly head at anytime without warning.

Good tip on planning. I try to fly with a purpose in mind. Once I get a particular area or place I want to fly to I've been using Google maps to develop flight plans on where I'm going to park my car and then what flight path I'm going to take, what the flight distances are , what I'm going to do when I get there and how I'm going to fly back to the home point. I found a couple of really useful apps called "UAV forecast" and "Windy" to check the local conditions before deciding to even make the attempt.

I've checked everything yesterday and fly without any problems. Distance over 300m and 100% signal all the way. I didn't mention earlier about it, but at the same time near there were international military trainings and maybe some radar signals or who knows what else cause my problems.
Regardless of this fact I've installed beta version of DJI Fly app 1.4.8 (build 1185) instead of 1.4.8 (build 1120) which seems to be buggy, maybe that helps too.

ManiekWwa Posted at 9-3 00:18
I've checked everything yesterday and fly without any problems. Distance over 300m and 100% signal all the way. I didn't mention earlier about it, but at the same time near there were international military trainings and maybe some radar signals or who knows what else cause my problems.
Regardless of this fact I've installed beta version of DJI Fly app 1.4.8 (build 1185) instead of 1.4.8 (build 1120) which seems to be buggy, maybe that helps too.

Same here. I flew 1 mile out over a farm field out in the open with full 5 bars. It definitely makes a difference when the transmission path is free of obstructions and away from power lines.