Hi there,

I haven't use my M2P for around 1 month and the last two flights I did, yesterday and today, I got this message on the RC:

"strong rc interference".

I flew in two different locations and completely free of any kind of metal around and always with LOS.
Yesterday and today always at the beach and this message apeared within 100m from the drone...I have calibrated the gimbal, the IMU, everything was fine before flights.

Can someone explain me what is this? Could be a problem with the RC?
Most important!!! Can the drone fly away if this happens!! Will I loose it??

HI,
I have the same messages in my RC and Go 4 on the phone. I thought that I was far away from any interferences. The warning came up several times and every time when I was flying for over a year on the same location. Luckely nothing happened while flying, so I kept on flying. Eventually I figured out what it was. Not far away from where I stood was a little hut with some toilets for the beach goers and in there was an electric motor that started now and again to pump away anything from the toilets. I went away about 100m from this place and tested again and then no more warnings. I do not think it has to do with where the drone is flying, but where you are with the RC. There must be something near you that causes the interference.

kyalami Posted at 1-23 07:19
HI,
I have the same messages in my RC and Go 4 on the phone. I thought that I was far away from any interferences. The warning came up several times and every time when I was flying for over a year on the same location. Luckely nothing happened while flying, so I kept on flying. Eventually I figured out what it was. Not far away from where I stood was a little hut with some toilets for the beach goers and in there was an electric motor that started now and again to pump away anything from the toilets. I went away about 100m from this place and tested again and then no more warnings. I do not think it has to do with where the drone is flying, but where you are with the RC. There must be something near you that causes the interference.

Hi kyalami,

Thank you for your reply.
This only happened twice and on the Go4 app. Didn't see on the RC(I was not looking) but as the message came, it went off. Just once and I took the drone back to me asap. After that I made a few more shots and nothing happened.
I was at the beach both times and I didn't see anything that could interfere with the drone or RC.
Next time I'll check if it happens again.

SnowSkier Pilot Posted at 1-23 16:47
Hi kyalami,

Thank you for your reply.

To a large extent, the only source of interference is WiFi, lumps of metal, power lines, steel bridges and such have nothing to do with the issue. Get away from WiFi sources such as cell phones, home routers and such and you should be better off. Calibrating things will not do any good at all, and no, radio interference will not cause a fly-away.

Hello there SnowSkier Pilot. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. May we please know what is the model of the mobile device that you are using please and kindly please be mindful of the location where steel structures and concrete slabs are located when flying. These structures can caused signal interference when flying your DJI drone.  Just a reminder that the signal between the aircraft and the remote controller is most reliable when the antennas are positioned in relation to the drone as shown below. Thank you.

Geebax Posted at 1-23 19:05
To a large extent, the only source of interference is WiFi, lumps of metal, power lines, steel bridges and such have nothing to do with the issue. Get away from WiFi sources such as cell phones, home routers and such and you should be better off. Calibrating things will not do any good at all, and no, radio interference will not cause a fly-away.

Hi Gebax,
Thanks for your reply. That is right, no other thing than a frequency on or close to what the RC uses can interfere and has nothing to do with calibration. My phone is always in airplaine mode when I fly. So yes, Wi-Fi could be one thing for sure, but then why did it stop when I moved away by about 100m. Perhaps that guy on hi CB stopped talking and that was the borderline for the Wi-Fi to interfer and when I moved, it was enought not to any longer interfere. I will check this again later this year, when it gets a bit warmer to fly. I was out on a large empty filed when I flew. The closest thing to me, about 10-15m was the hut with the toilets. The warning was not consistant and onle came on now and again. Could an electric motor with a problem cause this interference? I know that that could spread interference on a wide range of frequecies, but do not know that bandwidth of such a thing.

kyalami Posted at 1-24 00:41
Hi Gebax,
Thanks for your reply. That is right, no other thing than a frequency on or close to what the RC uses can interfere and has nothing to do with calibration. My phone is always in airplaine mode when I fly. So yes, Wi-Fi could be one thing for sure, but then why did it stop when I moved away by about 100m. Perhaps that guy on hi CB stopped talking and that was the borderline for the Wi-Fi to interfer and when I moved, it was enought not to any longer interfere. I will check this again later this year, when it gets a bit warmer to fly. I was out on a large empty filed when I flew. The closest thing to me, about 10-15m was the hut with the toilets. The warning was not consistant and onle came on now and again. Could an electric motor with a problem cause this interference? I know that that could spread interference on a wide range of frequecies, but do not know that bandwidth of such a thing.

I doubt an electric motor could cause interference, DJI use an encoded digital method for thier comms channel.

Got 2 water pumps and a strong WiFi at my compound. Didn't had any problems flying my drones. Even flying near the gsm pilon nearby didn't cause problems.

Had one time, with my Mavic pro (1st edition) some signal distortion flying into a point-to-point beam, probably used for telephone or radio transmission in the mountain area.
I noticed the transmission tower at my back, pointing the parabolic antenna in the direction of the area I was flying, only after the message popped up.

Geebax Posted at 1-24 13:30
I doubt an electric motor could cause interference, DJI use an encoded digital method for thier comms channel.

Hi Geebax,
Thanks for your reply. There is defenitely something that registered as Strong RC Interference for me. I will check this more when it gets warmer and  can get out and fly. If the capacitor in an electric motor does not work, it can spew out radiation EMI on a wide frequency band as noice. I am not shure if a motor could interfer upt to the Ghz frequency. Perhaps as the signal from the RC is digital, random noise may not interfere with the operation. But there may be other components in the RC that could be sensitive to random noise.  Anyway, nothing did happen to me controling the M2P, so next time I fly, I will stay away from the toilets and see if the message still comes up or not agin.
Edit: Edit: Learned that radiated Radio Frequency Interference RFI from motors is about 30Mhz to 1ghz. So it should not interfere with the normally used RC freuencies of 2,54 and 5,8ghz.

JohnDG Posted at 1-24 17:52
Got 2 water pumps and a strong WiFi at my compound. Didn't had any problems flying my drones. Even flying near the gsm pilon nearby didn't cause problems.

Had one time, with my Mavic pro (1st edition) some signal distortion flying into a point-to-point beam, probably used for telephone or radio transmission in the mountain area.

HI John,
Was that message the same as I had or similar? I guess microwave parabol antennas using several ghz of transmission. That I do not have in my area. I now that the RC uses either 2,4 or 5,8ghz.
Edit: Learned that radiated Radio Frequency Interference RFI from motors is about 30Mhz to 1ghz. So it should not interfere with the normally used RC freuencies of 2,54 and 5,8ghz.

kyalami Posted at 1-25 06:57
HI John,
Was that message the same as I had or similar? I guess microwave parabol antennas using several ghz of transmission. That I do not have in my area. I now that the RC uses either 2,4 or 5,8ghz.
Edit: Learned that radiated Radio Frequency Interference RFI from motors is about 30Mhz to 1ghz. So it should not interfere with the normally used RC freuencies of 2,54 and 5,8ghz.

Don't know if it was exactly the same as it was a Mavic Pro some years ago, using the Go4 app, but it mensioned "interference". Error phrases might be slightly different depending on the software versions.
I wasn't actually flying that far away. Mavic Pro, also using the first version of Occusync, good but not as good like the newer drones these days.

Didn't loose control or video link and get the drone back. As I was flying in a low crowded area with just a very small village and for the rest mountain and green area, I was surprised I got that message. Looking around I noticed a tower behind my back with parabolic antenna, covered with a white sheet on the front.
Then I realised I must have flown direct into the beam, as they typically use a small beam to link the transmission frequencies.

At the moment I live in an area surrounded with 3 cell phone towers.  One of them is clearly seen. I often fly quite close to it to make pictures from a distance to follow up on my newly building house.
I'm also using a strong 2.5 / 5 GHz WiFi access point with WiFi6, covering a circle of about 100m around my place. None of them giving me any problems with my Mavic 2 pro or my Mini2.

JohnDG Posted at 1-25 19:03
Don't know if it was exactly the same as it was a Mavic Pro some years ago, using the Go4 app, but it mensioned "interference". Error phrases might be slightly different depending on the software versions.
I wasn't actually flying that far away. Mavic Pro, also using the first version of Occusync, good but not as good like the newer drones these days.

Hmmm...
Interesting about flying through a narrow beam from a microwave parabol antenna and getting a interference. If I understand correctly, that points to that it was the drone that sent that information to the RC. I think I defenitely have to test this when it gets warmer, because there is also a large building further away (over 200m) where I am flying and the drone is some times coming close to that building. It is a large pumphouse for all sewerage in my area.

Interesting also to hear that you do not get any interference from cell phone towers and from your Wi-Fi 100m away from it. That indicates that cell phone towers adn Wi-Fi is no too sensitive to the drone at that distance. Good to know. Thanks for that info John and good luck with your new house.