Severe Range Limitation with Firmware 1.9.60
Uploading and Loding Picture ...(0/1)
o(^-^)o
harpandlore
lvl.1
Canada
Offline

I have a P3A.  Ever since I installed the latest firmware update, 1.9.60, and updated my remote, the AC suffered a great impediment of range.  For months I thought I was doing something wrong and I tried everything to resolve it, including flying from different locations, adjusting the angles of the antennae and recalibrating everything.  But nothing worked and the AC's range remained limited to about 400 yards.  The resolution of the image that I could see on my tablet was also terribly degraded.

I live in the Canadian bush.  There are no buildings, no nearby cell towers, or any of the usual things that would impede the signal.  The only possible impediment is trees, but I could go on high ground AND maintain line of sight to the aircraft on clear, calm days and still, when the AC reached about 400 yards, I would get a Signal Weak alert,  If I pushed on another 50 yards or so, I'd lose signal.

I am a naturalist and writer and use the drone mainly for monitoring wildlife, so I am not very technical, but as far as I can tell, the latest update either greatly reduced the RC's or AC's output or was interfering with the devices' ability to receive signal.  I'm a very cautious pilot, but I had pushed the drone out as far as two miles previously and still had five bars of signal and a clear image from the camera view on my tablet.  But since the 1.9.60 firmware update, 400 yards was the very best I could get.

I read in some other threads that others had experienced this problem, and I found a thread on rolling back the update and used the information to roll back the firmware on the aircraft and RC.  I put 1.8.80 on the AC and 1.6 on the RC.  It resolved the range issue like magic.  Today I flew the aircraft up to an altitude of 500 feet and out to 2000 yards without issue.  I would have gone further but it was getting gusty so I brought it back home.

I hope DJI will resolve this range issue with the latest firmware update because it gets cold up here and I would like to apply the latest fix to the intelligent battery to mitigate the risk of it resetting in cold weather.  I need the drone to operate safely down to about 20F.  The drone has helped my research on wildlife so much, allowing me to get data I would otherwise have to get on foot.  A single drone flight can save a week of foot work.

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced the latest update reducing the AC's range.

2016-10-8
Use props
mjlstudios
Second Officer
Flight distance : 1540131 ft
  • >>>
United States
Offline

Its the same with me! There are a lot of posts about this problem. I use to be able to fly out about 7500+ feet but since the upgrade I get about 2000 feet. I am hoping the next upgrade will address this problem.
2016-10-8
Use props
Advanced
You need to log in before you can reply Login | Register now

Credit Rules