Hi all, before I fly I usually check UAV Forecast app to see if conditions are good. For the past week or so the app keeps telling me sometimes 7 or sometimes 8 visible sats and 6.8 sats locked, causing the app to show not good to fly. I decided to see if this was true and went flying yesterday, the app again said 8 sats visible, not good to fly. However I was getting 15 sats at the least mostly 17 or 18. My question is, has anyone else who uses this app come across this problem? All the other data updates and seems to be accurate.

UAV Forecast is of dubious value anyway.
You would have to look at the settings.
perhaps it is applying a horizon mask to ignore sats close to the horizon?
It sounds like it is just showing US GPS sats but your drone is also seeing Russian Glonass sats.

There are always enough sats for flying if your drone has a good skyview anyway.

Are you inside or outside when you are looking at UAV Forecast? It will not be giving you an accurate reading indoors.

Geebax Posted at 2018-2-9 18:13
Are you inside or outside when you are looking at UAV Forecast? It will not be giving you an accurate reading indoors.

I have tried it inside and out and it always says 7 or 8 sats.

fansb1fe1104 Posted at 2018-2-9 20:05
I have tried it inside and out and it always says 7 or 8 sats.

Look at the settings.
It allows you to set a GPS Elevation Mask which cuts off sats within a certain angle from the horizon.
It will have a default value that has cut some off.
Set it to Zero to see the sats your Phantom would.
It also has an option that allows you to Include GLONASS Sats.
Since your Phantom sees Glonass sats, tick that.

And after all that, just Ignore the GPS sat part of UAV forecast because it's never going to give you any information that's of any use.
There will always be more than enough sats in the sky so there's no point being concerned about it.

The app is just a guide and based DarkSky API and other points, when  its all set to default you would hardly get to fly, you need to fiddle in the settings and adjust the thresholds, lower the sats limit, lower the visibility and so on, as for wind and temps thresholds, set them to what you would be comfortable flying in, and remember, the app is just a guide, also note, the the current conditions are based on your nearest METAR (airport or RAF base) so that could be 20 miles away and conditions can vary within a few miles

Labroides Posted at 2018-2-9 20:56
Look at the settings.
It allows you to set a GPS Elevation Mask which cuts off sats within a certain angle from the horizon.
It will have a default value that has cut some off.

Thank you for your help. I reset back to the default settings and now it is back to normal sat count (13 inside my house). I guess I must have somehow changed the settings...Thank you again for your help.

fansb1fe1104 Posted at 2018-2-10 11:13
Thank you for your help. I reset back to the default settings and now it is back to normal sat count (13 inside my house). I guess I must have somehow changed the settings...Thank you again for your help.

My app shows 13 while inside my house also...  what's funny is that it also shows that of the 13 that 12.9 are locked.....   so 1/10th of one of those sats is sleeping...

It doesn't matter whether you're inside the house or outside the house because it's a forecast of what satellites you'll "see" when you're trying to launch relative to the location that you're using with the app.  You can test this by going to the uavforecast site from your desktop or laptop which doesn't have GPS.  It'll give you the same satellite forecast.  The app assumes you are outside standing on the surface of the earth.  It knows where the satellites are located in the sky, and it can therefore tell you how many you can "see" relative to the location you're using within the app.  If you have trees or mountains or buildings, etc. around you which may block a few satellites close to the horizon, you can adjust the "GPS Elevation Mask" to more closely emulate your actual launch site.

I believe the locked column is an estimate of what you will lock... if the satellite is overhead, the estimate is 1.0, but if the satellite is on the horizon, the estimate is closer to 0.1... and so on....

Obviously once you get up high, you will potentially lock all of them up... you might even lock an extra one or two that are very close to the horizon and which weren't in the forecast...

Oldmaninwva Posted at 2018-2-11 03:06
My app shows 13 while inside my house also...  what's funny is that it also shows that of the 13 that 12.9 are locked.....   so 1/10th of one of those sats is sleeping...

I noticed that too...reminds me of gas prices...1.99 and 9/10 lol

Following. I'm still trying to decide how reliable this app is. I check it first because it has a simple layout, but wind speeds can vary from other forecasts, so I use it as more of a recommendation. Seriously considering the year-long subscription so I can see further out in advance.

I've stopped using it.

I look at the trees, if they're not moving or moving a little I head outside. Power on the Phantom/Mavic, start Go4 app and if I get 9+ satellites I'm good to go.

I look at it before every flight.  I don't worry too much about the satellites but I do give them a glance.  I'm more concerned with the wind.  I want to know about wind speed and also wind direction.  After checking it, if it looks like a good day to fly, I'll start charging a battery.  But before I step out the door, I look at www.windy.com and check the Euro and GFS at 100 meters AGL.  

If you're in Kansas or Oklahoma or North Dakota, you don't need a wind app.  You can look at the trees or wet your finger.  But if you're in Tennessee or western Washington or even the steep hills of Montgomery County, Maryland, you'd be wise to check the winds aloft with a weather site.  

www.windy.com

Another nice attribute of uavforecast.com is the sectional maps.  If you have a 107, or you're interested in looking at a sectional chart for your area and maybe learning a little about them, uavforecast provides a convenient link to a Skyvector sectional chart for your area.  The link, titled map, is just above the green and red colored chart.  Click on it and then click Airspace Sectionals.