MAVICDLNM Posted at 2017-7-11 17:59
Not to be a drone police.  But Victoria Park is also NO Drone area, and it stated clearly at the front gate no RC allowed.  So whenever you try to play there next time be as low profile as possible.

Thanks, good to know. I think the spark is small enough when the guards walked past they didn't even talk to me. I'm actually surprised how few people notice. Any recommendations on where to fly so that I don't need to hike out of the city?

Unknown User Posted at 2017-7-11 19:03
Thanks, good to know. I think the spark is small enough when the guards walked past they didn't even talk to me. I'm actually surprised how few people notice. Any recommendations on where to fly so that I don't need to hike out of the city?

Stanley, Clear Water Bay and Ocean Park back door are great place for drone.  Others are fine but not in city and street area.  Keep low profile and mostly police won’t bother you.

fansa7dc5944 Posted at 2017-6-29 19:46
I really do satisfy with my Spark RC range. I limit my flying within 500 m. distance and 90 m. height. For me, there is no point to fly the small drone like Spark too high and too far. Spark cannot stand in high wind velocity. Most people lost there drone because of this. 500 m. is far enough for the small battery capacity. You may need Mavic or Phantom 4 or even Inspire 2 to do the fly high/far mission. Spark is meant for entertainment. Just fly for fun.

Understand what your saying and glad you happy with your spark, but if DJI is advertising the spark to fly up to 2000km with the remote then we are expecting that it to be capable of do so and nothing less.

fansfcc89423 Posted at 2017-7-12 16:29
Understand what your saying and glad you happy with your spark, but if DJI is advertising the spark to fly up to 2000km with the remote then we are expecting that it to be capable of do so and nothing less.

you probably mean 2000m.  If it go 2000km is a weapon North Korea would dead to get.

Got my Spark yesterday. Max range is 80 meters in open fields. That is simply not good enough! I will return it it if there is no solution to the problem.

Joker Eh Posted at 2017-6-23 13:00
Hmm I will have to find a way to shed 50g then

haha yea that wont be easy, let me know if you manage to do that.

MAVICDLNM Posted at 2017-6-26 01:43
Not sure what you mean by "the rest of us”?  The vote result is not even 50/50!  There is a big group in Hong Kong all have similar flight range.  I put this up is to draw attention of the RC problem we facing.  I am glad you don’t have it, but sure many of US do have, it might be the location or some other problem.  I hope DJI will take care the problem of us and improve it further.
Whether I should sell my spark or not is definitely not your business, and totally nothing has to do with the purpose of the voting post.  If you don’t like to the way I put it, stay out of it!

Nicely put.  

jangermann Posted at 2017-7-12 23:36
Got my Spark yesterday. Max range is 80 meters in open fields. That is simply not good enough! I will return it it if there is no solution to the problem.

are you using an RC? if not than when using only a mobile phone as the controller your only supposed to get around that distance! an RC on the other hand gets 2KM or 1.2M

Ok so there a fair discussion going on here about range, here in the UK we have reduced WiFi power due to our EU regulations, so I have been testing to see what I can expect from the Spark.

In an urban environment, I wasn't expecting much, cluttered WiFi and plenty of noise from various other electronic kit using the band(s).

Running a test in my garden the maximum I saw at 20Mtrs alt. was 66Mtrs before disconnection and return home. This was with the RC connected WiFi and also using an OTG cable. Using the iPhone 7 on its own, about 25Mts was the max. All on 5.8Ghz.

Moving out to the countryside, with the iPhone only, about 40 Mtrs was the best I managed, at an altitude of around 10Mtrs. Using the remote this extended out to 470Mtrs before choppy video and a disconnection. This was using the iPhone connected to the RC with WiFi. Fairly convinced that the OTG cable 'hack' does'nt improve much in the way of range. I also left the phone in normal phone mode, with bluetooth etc on.

I was pretty happy with that as I wasn't expecting much from the WiFi connectivity, 470M is well out of site, very remote countryside so only the sheep to worry about.

The area also has a large buried water main (around 6' across) This can induce compass errors, which it did on numerous occasions during my tests, All I can say is the Spark did not behave erratically it was perfectly happy hovering in place with the compass error warning until I moved away from the area.

Dronie mode, Helix, Rocket & Circle all tested all worked, I agree that the drone mode is very flat, but it does increase altitude as it backs away, perhaps not as much as you might expect but it is showing a vertical climb, all be it very shallow.You need lots of space for Helix!

Thor1 Posted at 2017-7-13 04:33
are you using an RC? if not than when using only a mobile phone as the controller your only supposed to get around that distance! an RC on the other hand gets 2KM or 1.2M

Yes im using the RC. Using my phone in airplanemode and connected to RC via cable. I am in EU so not the same distances, but 80 meters...you can do better Dji

I'm surprised by the poll results, I can't go beyond 250 m with RC in country field and this is far from what was advertised... Not satisfied at all.

fans6e376556 Posted at 2017-7-13 07:35
I'm surprised by the poll results, I can't go beyond 250 m with RC in country field and this is far from what was advertised... Not satisfied at all.

The poll results are mostly not satisfy.

I do have the FlyMore Combo since yesterday, made 5 flights since then. Flightime is good, like advertised. But the range.. holy crap it is bad!
I set up everything with the RC, and after about 150 meter distance I loose Signal on the Video feed, and drone goes into emergency mode and Returns home. I tried in several different directions, it doesnt matter if you can still see the drone or not - it just aborts after about 120-150 meter distance.

I'm hugely disappointed from DJI and the false Advertising! I will try again today and tomorrow in different Areas, but my test flight was already out in the Country side - so no high buildings but a lot of grass land and forest to fly above.

fans297aa97c Posted at 2017-7-14 00:04
I do have the FlyMore Combo since yesterday, made 5 flights since then. Flightime is good, like advertised. But the range.. holy crap it is bad!
I set up everything with the RC, and after about 150 meter distance I loose Signal on the Video feed, and drone goes into emergency mode and Returns home. I tried in several different directions, it doesnt matter if you can still see the drone or not - it just aborts after about 120-150 meter distance.

A lot of people in CE countries is experience the same thing, including me. I get max 80-110 meters.
BUT yesterday I changed to 2.4G and on the same location I did fly 300 meters away with not problem. Don't know my max range in 2.4G, but at 300 meters there was still plenty of signal.

Try change to 2.4G.

The bad thing is that you have to change to 2.4G every time you change the battery on the Spark, since the system don't remember your settings.  I am sure that Dji is fixing this problem in near future.

  

ok, will try to change to 2.4G this evening and hope the range will increase significantly. I dont need 2km, but 500 meters at least would be more than welcome. Its a small drone and I know that, but still you need to get high for the best shots.

Hello Everyone thought i would share the reply that i got from DJI support below, my email to dji support is below that. Interesting that i've been told that it can fly maximum 300m

Thanks for the email.  We are very sorry for the inconveniences.  It could fly maximal 300m or so.  So I would say 70m is under certain conditions normal.  Could you check under which frequency you fly with the drone 2.4 or 5.8 Ghz?   You could also try to switch it to another frequency and see if you could fly further.  I am looking forward to your reply.
Best regards
Technical support
DJI GmbH



Hello,

When i fly my spark using the remote control i can barely reach the distance of 70m and then i lose signal and the drone returns to home. I have tried connecting the phone to the remote control via a cable and switching the phone to airplane mode with same results. I flew the drone in remote areas without any houses or wifi signals around.

I believe there is an issue with the remote or maybe maybe the drone, Please advice what can be done as the distance is 20x less then advertised?

Regards,
Nick

nick_radaev Posted at 2017-7-14 02:08
Hello Everyone thought i would share the reply that i got from DJI support below, my email to dji support is below that. Interesting that i've been told that it can fly maximum 300m

Thanks for the email.  We are very sorry for the inconveniences.  It could fly maximal 300m or so.  So I would say 70m is under certain conditions normal.  Could you check under which frequency you fly with the drone 2.4 or 5.8 Ghz?   You could also try to switch it to another frequency and see if you could fly further.  I am looking forward to your reply.

Ok got to the bottom of it, DJI advertises their drone to be 2km both for the US and EU market but for EU market it is capped at CE Frequency therefor max distance with 2.4Ghz is 0.5km and with 5.8Ghz 0.3km.

So for anyone asking themselves the same question why they cant fly further in EU this is your answer, shame that DJI does not make it very clear but at the same time it's not up to them it is the regulation.


http://store.dji.com/product/spark-remote-controller

2.4 GHz: 1.2 mi (2 km, FCC), 0.31 mi (0.5 km, CE), 0.31 mi (0.5 km, SRRC)
5.8 GHz: 1.2 mi (2 km, FCC), 0.19 mi (0.3 km, CE), 0.75 mi (1.2 km, SRRC)

nick_radaev Posted at 2017-7-14 02:41
Ok got to the bottom of it, DJI advertises their drone to be 2km both for the US and EU market but for EU market it is capped at CE Frequency therefor max distance with 2.4Ghz is 0.5km and with 5.8Ghz 0.3km.

So for anyone asking themselves the same question why they cant fly further in EU this is your answer, shame that DJI does not make it very clear but at the same time it's not up to them it is the regulation.

Yes but if it can fly 300 meters on 5.8G I would be happy, but I get only 80 - 100 meters max, and that's what the hole ting is about.
Extreme low range in CE (EU) on 5.8G, max 100m (and not 300m).
Changing to 2.4G make it fly longer than 300m (I have not testet max range)  but it is enough to make me happy.
We just need DJI to make a firmware where 2.4G can be selected at default, so we don't have to set it every time we change battery. And then they should fix the bug that prevent Android phones to connect to the controller via WIFI when 2.4G is set.

so folks, it is not possible for me to change to 2.4G - when I do that I loose video stream and can not start the drone. Tested with iphone 6, iphone 7 and ipad pro. Everytime the same.
I dont have or want a OTG cable. So what is the trick? Do I have to pair RC with Drone differently so that 2.4G can be used for Phone > Drone connection? Thank you

fans297aa97c Posted at 2017-7-14 07:22
so folks, it is not possible for me to change to 2.4G - when I do that I loose video stream and can not start the drone. Tested with iphone 6, iphone 7 and ipad pro. Everytime the same.
I dont have or want a OTG cable. So what is the trick? Do I have to pair RC with Drone differently so that 2.4G can be used for Phone > Drone connection? Thank you

OTG cable, RC and this http://forum.dji.com/thread-104427-1-1.html

As far as I know there is currently no other way to enforce 2.4GHz in combination with the RC

MAVICDLNM Posted at 2017-7-12 22:51
you probably mean 2000m.  If it go 2000km is a weapon North Korea would dead to get.

LOL i meant 2000m

fans297aa97c Posted at 2017-7-14 07:22
so folks, it is not possible for me to change to 2.4G - when I do that I loose video stream and can not start the drone. Tested with iphone 6, iphone 7 and ipad pro. Everytime the same.
I dont have or want a OTG cable. So what is the trick? Do I have to pair RC with Drone differently so that 2.4G can be used for Phone > Drone connection? Thank you

When you change to 2.4G on your ipad, yes you loose the picture, but then goto wifi settings and reconnect to the RC.
It works for me.

I am getting great distance on mine. So far out 1088m (could have gone further) and very high :-)

Mine goes well beyond where I can no longer see it so I'm satisfied.

I think if people are unsatisfied with the range they probably didn't read the fine print or expect "perfect" conditions every time.  The Spark was not meant to be a Mavic, Phantom 4, or Inspire replacement.  It does exactly what its supposed to.   

QuadBart Posted at 2017-7-16 05:06
I think if people are unsatisfied with the range they probably didn't read the fine print or expect "perfect" conditions every time.  The Spark was not meant to be a Mavic, Phantom 4, or Inspire replacement.  It does exactly what its supposed to.

I get what you mean.  And I do tried my Spark in many different locations, sure the flight location is the key factor of range.  My range of Spark from 90m to 500m on different locations.  And yes 90m is greatly disappointed probably due to highly signal disturb area.  But I hear there will be another firmware go to be improve the connect and lets keep our fingers cross.

Hey Folks, so I bougth an OTG cable and changed Signal to 2.4G... what should I say?

This Little thingy is insane! I was able to fly 500 meters where last time i only got 210m. Furthermore I decided to head to some really rural places with no wifi Interruption (mountain range, 1900 meters above sea Level) and it was amazing! I flew 950 meters easily and about 370 meters high in altitude... truly insane! This is more than i wanted and I'm really pleased and happy with the Spark. ALl the Features work and now the range is good to me... you Need to remind yourself that this is a really tiny drone. I was amazed how well it worked out for it in that altitude with all the wind, simply amazing. Will post Pictures and Videos soon!

Just did a distance run. 1,319m or 4,327ft. Not bad for such a small drone!

check out the footage i'm getting out of the SPARK. Simply amazing! OTG and 2.4G rules!

Watch in 1080p HD

Thor1 Posted at 2017-7-13 04:33
are you using an RC? if not than when using only a mobile phone as the controller your only supposed to get around that distance! an RC on the other hand gets 2KM or 1.2M

That is what DJI advertise but in real life there is no way this distance could be reached... I don't go beyond 200/300m at best

DarKOrange Posted at 2017-7-17 04:06
That is what DJI advertise but in real life there is no way this distance could be reached... I don't go beyond 200/300m at best

well yes, i have had mine out almost 500 meters, i would have went further but its the law here that you cant go any further than that!

swiss_pilot Posted at 2017-7-17 01:42
check out the footage i'm getting out of the SPARK. Simply amazing! OTG and 2.4G rules!

Watch in 1080p HD

Nice if we have place like that to fly.  Unfortunately not in Hong Kong.

justamacguy Posted at 2017-6-26 10:06
The problem is with the BlueTooth signal on your phone or tablet. Turn off BlueTooth and the range comes back. Hopefully this will be fixed in a firmware update.

really hope so my max range is 300m then i lose video feed

Did a few flights up to 1200' yesterday (first time using the spark). No issues. Didn't need to go any further but probably will in the next few days.  No problem connecting anything using an old iPhone 5s in airplane mode and otg cable.

We all know the advertised range is always for optimal conditions, with good line of sight and antennas pointing in the right directions

well I just read in other threads on this Forum that OTG function is disabled in newer Firmware and will stay disbled. If thats the case, they can have their SPARK back in no time!

It works flawlessly at 400 feet up and as far as I can see it away from me, won't ever go any further than that, so I'm good.

Ive had not problems with range, got 1200 meters yesterday. didn't even realise i went that far until checking the logs today.

I'm loosing Wifi signal between RC and Spark around 250m in country field... Then I went to a desert beach, same...

DarKOrange Posted at 2017-7-20 02:45
I'm loosing Wifi signal between RC and Spark around 250m in country field... Then I went to a desert beach, same...

You can try switch between 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz with different channels and compare the range.