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please list all things that can/will cause rc interference
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Bekaru Tree
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My RC icon blinks - according to the manual it occurs when an interferance is recognised during flight.
At th end of point 8 it states that 'interference will not affect overall flight experiance' - Thats correct, my flight experiance has remained good BUT my filming experiance becomes a night mare as this is the time when my pixilation and wash out issues start again making composing or framing shots impossible, cause the screen is not properly visible.
When icon stops blinking then i can film again as if nothing was ever wrong - then the blinking starts (perhaps coincidently) my image issues on my devise screen start again.



Questions:
1. what factors cause interference - generally
2. what factors could cause interference to be detected when the drone is short distance away and a few meters up from home point - flying in an open field with zero obsrtuctions between me and drone. No trees between me and drone - nothing but some long grass and clean empty space.
3. If interferance is detected should it not be constant? or does it make sense that for a few minutes it will detect interferance and then for the next few minutes detect no interferance (i am flying from the exact same spot and flying vlos around the same area) and then later pick up interference again.

Please post any and all ideas you may know of or think could possibly cause interference - even if it includes what you believe are the obvious ones.
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Bekaru Tree
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Ok - i will start 1. wifi interference (turn on airplane mode) 2. smart watches (heard this a few times). I know of a few more but i am hoping to hear about some ideas i have not yet heard about because the regular things are not what causing my problems - i will be happy to hear and will take time to consider even the craziest possibilities.
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Lamplighter55
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Solar flares - joking not.
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Bekaru Tree
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Lamplighter55 Posted at 2018-3-2 14:29
Solar flares - joking not.

hell yeh - that is not an unrealistic possibility.
But currently solar wind stream is down the past two days - although i can see coronal hole activity the data shows no respective impact
active solar flare on east limb popped as it passed earth facing.
kp index shows no  forecasted increase.
A new active region is coming in with 3 sunspot tornadoes- will watch that but i expect, as has become a theme with earth facing sunspots the past very long while now - prediction is it will fade out.
Appears to be an equitorial coronal hole hot on it heals so possible the kp may raise over the weekend - will keep this in mind

Thanks -


kp index.JPG
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hallmark007
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Check this one out magnetic interference in RC.

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Mavdude
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Home wifi routers, but I don't think there are any in your open field location. And for close proximity interference, perhaps the transmitter/antenna in the drone is faulty, or a fault with the receiver end, bad antenna.

Has this always been a problem with your drone? Or has it progressively been getting worse?

Radar running around 2.4ghz could interfere, strong cell towers. You can change your video link channel based on interference and view interference signals in the go app.
If you don't see any significant interference, then perhaps the video transmit signal is weak.
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Bekaru Tree
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Mavdude Posted at 2018-3-2 18:05
Home wifi routers, but I don't think there are any in your open field location. And for close proximity interference, perhaps the transmitter/antenna in the drone is faulty, or a fault with the receiver end, bad antenna.

Has this always been a problem with your drone? Or has it progressively been getting worse?

your suggestion about the transmitter/antenna is the possible cause that resonates with me most - thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Yeh is definately not wifi - i know where the towers are and what  the relay paths are (i have had some involvement in that instalation) - also it happens in other fly zones where i also know for sure that no wifi relay paths exist - so at least i am happy to be certain that is not the case.

Thanks for your input - the possiblity of antena error is the strongest likelyhood at this time - much appreciated - i will email my supplier and discuss the possibility of having them test this aspect.
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Lamplighter55
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Bekaru Tree Posted at 2018-3-3 03:16
your suggestion about the transmitter/antenna is the possible cause that resonates with me most - thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Yeh is definately not wifi - i know where the towers are and what  the relay paths are (i have had some involvement in that instalation) - also it happens in other fly zones where i also know for sure that no wifi relay paths exist - so at least i am happy to be certain that is not the case.

Yup cell towers definitely - and where I fly they are hidden/camouflaged to not look so obvious in the landscape.
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Lamplighter55
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One thing I've experienced when using a Crystalsky monitor with my Mavic RC is interference from the WiFi transmission from the Crystalsky - so now I turn it off when out and about.
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Bekaru Tree
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Lamplighter55 Posted at 2018-3-3 03:38
One thing I've experienced when using a Christalsky monitor with my Mavic RC is interference from the WiFi transmission from the Christalsky - so now I turn it off when out and about.

its become standard preflight procedure for me to turn on airplane mode on my devise during preflight setup.
i am a bit knowlagable about cell towers and their local location and relay paths - that cant be the issue for me.
Funny thing worth mentioning though is that a few months ago i purposfully flew around a cell phone tower just to see what effects it might have but i picked up no issues or anomolies.
That was just a once off test and despite no issues encountered i am still aware always to avoid them and the replay tracks.
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Bekaru Tree
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hallmark007 Posted at 2018-3-2 17:03
Check this one out magnetic interference in RC.

https://youtu.be/0h_lVR_gKMU

Thanks hallmark - thats a good clip showing actual real time cause and effect.
Personally i do not wear any jewelry what so ever - except for some loose coins in my pocket sometimes and the jeans zipper there is no metal, magnetised or not anywhere around me.

Could maybe be my phone - thats the only other metal component around but i doubt this is the issue as the problem remains consistent whether i am using my phone and when i have tried other phones.

Thanks for sharing that interesting clip.
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A CW
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Apparently Apple watches (to add to the list)
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Aardvark
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Any electrical device has the potential to cause interference (no pun intended). One that's often forgotten about in the country is electric fences, if they start discharging to ground they can cause a lot of noise.
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SA Mavic
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I have a couple of things that cause magnetic  interference warnings with the Mavic. One is the steel mesh in concrete and a second is a metal filing cabinet on my verandah.  You can check out the magnetic interference strength with one of the information pages of the DJI GO 4 app.
One other thing that gave me a major scare were wi-fi microphones being used with a commercial TV camera. I was at an event opening and was planning to do a mid distance video of the event and had the drone idling on the ground when the wireless PA system and TV cameras all turned on. My drone suddenly took off by itself and went in an arc towards the crowd of people. The only control I had of it was to go up and down or fly backwards -no other control worked - not even "Return to home". It just kept going flat out in a large arc with the screen was giving me a "strong magnetic interference" warning. I managed to force it to fly backwards in a large arc until I got a couple of hundred metres away, at which point I managed to get full control back and land. About half an hour later I went back to the same spot with no microphones or cameras around and the drone behaved totally normally.
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Lamplighter55
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Another environmental phenomenon that could cause a RC interference could be magnetite deposits in the area. This also correlates with old legacy iron/ferrous piping not just rebar concrete reinforcements.
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AlejandroCalori
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¿Do metal watches cause interference?
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B1houdini
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For me it was standing over a surveyors medallion in the middle of a Cul-de-sac. My compass indicator was completely red.

Didn't realize the magnetic interference it had until I stepped a few feet away.  

I think it was a very long rod drove into the ground.
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davidmartingraf
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Mavdude Posted at 2018-3-2 18:05
Home wifi routers, but I don't think there are any in your open field location. And for close proximity interference, perhaps the transmitter/antenna in the drone is faulty, or a fault with the receiver end, bad antenna.

Has this always been a problem with your drone? Or has it progressively been getting worse?

I've had similar experiences with my Mavic Pro, and what I can comment is between flying my Spark in the same exact flight path and the Mavic, it seems the Ocusync technology causes more interference vis-a-vis to obtain the longer flight range.

In my tests, I concluded there seems to be something occurring inside the Ocusync technology that reacts more extreme, as opposed to the enhanced WiFi of the Spark. This could be a shortcoming of Ocusync given the trade-off for range and less control with fluidity? Matter of taste and preferences, I guess?
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davidmartingraf
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B1houdini Posted at 2018-3-3 10:44
For me it was standing over a surveyors medallion in the middle of a Cul-de-sac. My compass indicator was completely red.

Didn't realize the magnetic interference it had until I stepped a few feet away.  

I rarely get compass errors when the Remote Controller icon begins flashing?
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davidmartingraf
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AlejandroCalori Posted at 2018-3-3 10:27
¿Do metal watches cause interference?

Shouldn't there be some level of relativity with a Mavic Pro Remote Controller as compared to a Mavic Air or Spark?
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davidmartingraf
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Lamplighter55 Posted at 2018-3-3 09:56
Another environmental phenomenon that could cause a RC interference could be magnetite deposits in the area. This also correlates with old legacy iron/ferrous piping not just rebar concrete reinforcements.

Can  you provide feedback of your experiences between using the Remote Controller of Spark versus your Mavic Pros? Thanks!
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A CW
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AlejandroCalori Posted at 2018-3-3 10:27
¿Do metal watches cause interference?

Typically anything that is ferromagnetic
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Bekaru Tree
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B1houdini Posted at 2018-3-3 10:44
For me it was standing over a surveyors medallion in the middle of a Cul-de-sac. My compass indicator was completely red.

Didn't realize the magnetic interference it had until I stepped a few feet away.  

thanks houdini - another interesting observation - i am adding it to my list and will see how to put it together when i got some more information

I spent the afternoon reading various papers on the internet about interference issues with RF - my head is still exploding with trying to work out what is relevant to me considering all the possibilities.

I hope to make a conclusion post later if i can process the information well enough to give an overview - still i have no definate answer to the immediate problem although some realistic alternatives are becoming apparent.
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Bekaru Tree
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SA Mavic Posted at 2018-3-3 05:25
I have a couple of things that cause magnetic  interference warnings with the Mavic. One is the steel mesh in concrete and a second is a metal filing cabinet on my verandah.  You can check out the magnetic interference strength with one of the information pages of the DJI GO 4 app.
One other thing that gave me a major scare were wi-fi microphones being used with a commercial TV camera. I was at an event opening and was planning to do a mid distance video of the event and had the drone idling on the ground when the wireless PA system and TV cameras all turned on. My drone suddenly took off by itself and went in an arc towards the crowd of people. The only control I had of it was to go up and down or fly backwards -no other control worked - not even "Return to home". It just kept going flat out in a large arc with the screen was giving me a "strong magnetic interference" warning. I managed to force it to fly backwards in a large arc until I got a couple of hundred metres away, at which point I managed to get full control back and land. About half an hour later I went back to the same spot with no microphones or cameras around and the drone behaved totally normally.

hey samavic - thanks for your post - your first paragraph lists some valid and real/ physical and observable issues which i will add to my list.
Your second paragraph information caused me to spend the afternoon researching papers on RF interference - wow what a trip. here are a couple of links you may find intersting in relation to the tv camera interference issue and also a pic below.

I think my answer is going to be found somewhere in the research i did because of the information in your post.
My issue is not related to physical presence of metal what so ever.
My issue is also not related to wifi conflict or RF overlaps etc
My issue is not related to incorrect antena positioning
My issue is not related to environmental conditions

My issue does seem to have something to do with proximity and something else - maybe something like reflection or wave interference - hopefully i will get a grip on this

thanks very much for your input.
https://dl.cdn-anritsu.com/en-us ... ote/11410-00388.pdf
http://www.audio-technica.com/cm ... b/index.html#direct
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com ... -rf-circuit-design/
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Montfrooij
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I have seen some video transmission errors due to trees (with all the water in it).
But you stated there were none in between.
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Bekaru Tree
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Montfrooij Posted at 2018-3-3 13:32
I have seen some video transmission errors due to trees (with all the water in it).
But you stated there were none in between.

good point - i saw a paper where they said that the sap on peach trees at different times of year was observed to absorb rf and was found to be the cause off the rf problem in that case.

Do you think it might have to do with water content absorbing the rf or deflecting and reflecting it ?

i just found an article about a mavic pro pilot who says he discovered that his antena cable inside the rc was not clipped in propely - now i am thinking about opening my rc to have a look - a bit nervous
though:-)
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Montfrooij
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I have read about cases where trees cause for interference and they said it was because of the water.
I did not test that myself.
What band are you using (2.4 / 5.8?)
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MiniPalourde
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Like another user said, your unit may be faulty. I suggest you go in the middle of no where and you do a range test with your Mavic Air. Do you have these problems in multiple locations or just one place?
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Bekaru Tree Posted at 2018-3-3 13:46
good point - i saw a paper where they said that the sap on peach trees at different times of year was observed to absorb rf and was found to be the cause off the rf problem in that case.

Do you think it might have to do with water content absorbing the rf or deflecting and reflecting it ?

If your aircraft is still under warranty, do not open the drone. Send it back to DJI for repair if you think it might be faulty.

You probably know that but touching the insides of your drone could remove your warranty.
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Bekaru Tree
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MiniPalourde Posted at 2018-3-3 15:25
If your aircraft is still under warranty, do not open the drone. Send it back to DJI for repair if you think it might be faulty.

You probably know that but touching the insides of your drone could remove your warranty.

thanks - yeh you are right and i am reluctant to open it.
I did send my drone back and they kindly replaced a part for free which they said they found to be faulty - so i am happy about that but i still have my same problem - so was there really anything wrong with that part? i do not know - seems unlikely.
The nature of my problem is on again off again. If it was constant i am sure they would have found and fixed it.
The part i am interested to open to look inside is the RC - my one year warentee expires next week saturday. i will write to my supplier and ask if they will open and check my rc which i am optimistic they will - the thing for me though is that i really want to know what the answer is to whats causing the problem - not just have it fixed and not know what the cause was.
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Bekaru Tree
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MiniPalourde Posted at 2018-3-3 15:23
Like another user said, your unit may be faulty. I suggest you go in the middle of no where and you do a range test with your Mavic Air. Do you have these problems in multiple locations or just one place?

I have the problem in multiple locations.
the intersting repetetive observations are that it occurs a lot especially when i am flying close to me, also sometimes when i am further but definately less and often more so when i am flying quite low but sometimes also when i am 60m up or more.
It is this inconsistency that makes trouble shooting so hard.
It sometimes seems to kick in when i throttle up while video is recording (initial throttle mostly).

The problem is seldom, hardly ever on my full screen usually the bottom quater but sometimes up to half the screen will wash out, occasionally the whole screen will go fuzzy and then all of a sudden without me changing anything - the entire picture pops back to perfect.

as mentioned in another post - i am not sure it has to do with my actual drone. if it is then it is something they do not realise to be a problem because what they fixed on my drone did not fix my problem.
personally i am thinking or wondering about the possibility of it maybe being a fault to do with my antena, either on the legs but i am thinking maybe more likely within my rc - but these are just guesses based on a process of elimination - i do not know the truth of it, just trouble shooting by working through 'best guesses"
right now i am going through a good phase - means the problem is not nearly as bad as i had it the last month - but it is partially still there so i do not understand.
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Aardvark
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Bekaru Tree Posted at 2018-3-3 16:05
thanks - yeh you are right and i am reluctant to open it.
I did send my drone back and they kindly replaced a part for free which they said they found to be faulty - so i am happy about that but i still have my same problem - so was there really anything wrong with that part? i do not know - seems unlikely.
The nature of my problem is on again off again. If it was constant i am sure they would have found and fixed it.

I don't suppose you could 'borrow' a Mavic RC for testing, a friend or perhaps a friendly RC shop ?

That at least might pin it down to RC rather than aircraft.
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Bekaru Tree
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Aardvark Posted at 2018-3-3 16:21
I don't suppose you could 'borrow' a Mavic RC for testing, a friend or perhaps a friendly RC shop ?

That at least might pin it down to RC rather than aircraft.

exactly right - fortunately i do know of a guy who has a mavic pro locally , will try catch up with him asap that will definetely eliminate the current theory i am stuck on (that my rc might be the issue)
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MiniPalourde
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Bekaru Tree Posted at 2018-3-3 16:27
exactly right - fortunately i do know of a guy who has a mavic pro locally , will try catch up with him asap that will definetely eliminate the current theory i am stuck on (that my rc might be the issue)

Yes, that's the best thing you can do right now. You should do that before trying anything else.
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Mavdude
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Given that you notice this when you are lifting, I would say you have a bad connection in the craft, either where the antenna plugs in or at the antenna itself.
It would be  a good test to have someone just hold the craft at a distance from you and fold the rear arms out, bump the antennas, bump the craft and see if bumping specifically causes the effects you see on your screen. If bumping does have an effect, then you have something loose.
Just because it has been pulled apart, doesn't mean that the problem will have been seen/noticed.
Sadly a lot of people who do "electronic repair" these days really have very little idea of what is actually wrong with the "component"(circuit board) they are replacing nor how to actually fix it(other than replacing the board).
Hopefully you were able to test today and narrow down the problem a bit.

I know this below does not apply to the OP(original poster), more for just general knowledge ;)
With cell towers, there are many different frequencies. Some are down at 850-900 mhz with a mutltiude of frequencies ranging up to 2600mhz and beyond in some countries. So when someone says they flew in front of one and it didn't effect their drone, doesn't mean that you can fly in front of every tower, some might have an effect, others not. I flew in front of one and nothing was very happy about it and I was only about 200m away. Got out of there quick smart!
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Mavdude
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Curiosity finally got the better of me. I had a look at the antennas on the legs and noticed that the flux from the soldering process is not cleaned off and around the solder joints.
Yes there is such a thing as no clean flux, RF and flux don't really go together, especially when you need really good performance.
I cleaned it off with some flux remover.
Will be interested to see if I can get further than 1k out without the video getting glitchy next time I fly.
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Suren
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Bekaru Tree Posted at 2018-3-3 16:27
exactly right - fortunately i do know of a guy who has a mavic pro locally , will try catch up with him asap that will definetely eliminate the current theory i am stuck on (that my rc might be the issue)

Hi Bekaru, I flew today and very seldom have issues with Rc interfernce showing on my app but when i do get this message i find that it always happens if i am either wearing my samsung watch or if i am flying from the beach. Today i also noticed that on my app the Rc signal bars were flashing but on the remote itself it was not flashing, even if i brought the drone in close to me it still flashed away so i brought the drone down and restarted it and the it rectified itself but started again 500 meters away from. I put this down to maybe interference from the surrounding area has it did not affect the flight performance at all.
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Bekaru Tree
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Mavdude Posted at 2018-3-4 03:44
Curiosity finally got the better of me. I had a look at the antennas on the legs and noticed that the flux from the soldering process is not cleaned off and around the solder joints.
Yes there is such a thing as no clean flux, RF and flux don't really go together, especially when you need really good performance.
I cleaned it off with some flux remover.

nice one - thanks man - i am going to check mine out right now
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Bekaru Tree
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Mavdude Posted at 2018-3-4 03:44
Curiosity finally got the better of me. I had a look at the antennas on the legs and noticed that the flux from the soldering process is not cleaned off and around the solder joints.
Yes there is such a thing as no clean flux, RF and flux don't really go together, especially when you need really good performance.
I cleaned it off with some flux remover.

i opened the front left arm but did not see any solder joints - i am assuming the other side is similarly constructed so i did not open that.
Where did you find the solder joint - at the end where the motor is or other end of the arm?

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Bekaru Tree
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Suren Posted at 2018-3-4 06:10
Hi Bekaru, I flew today and very seldom have issues with Rc interfernce showing on my app but when i do get this message i find that it always happens if i am either wearing my samsung watch or if i am flying from the beach. Today i also noticed that on my app the Rc signal bars were flashing but on the remote itself it was not flashing, even if i brought the drone in close to me it still flashed away so i brought the drone down and restarted it and the it rectified itself but started again 500 meters away from. I put this down to maybe interference from the surrounding area has it did not affect the flight performance at all.

Thanks Suren for your reply.
I do not wear any jewelry or watches - so i can tick that off.

I fly mostly over lagoon and adjacent land.
I sometimes think  it might seem worse over water but actually it is also bad over land also.

Yesterday was awesome - few issues and then only at the start of fight, after that chasing speed boats and ripping around shooting clips - no problems , nice footage. 2nd battery no issues at all.
Today - same place, same kit, same time of day and almost every clip the image on my devise is fuzzy and tough to work out whats in the picture - then for moments everything pops back into perfect focus but soon enough it goes awry again.
Today i flew 2 batteries, it was bad to start, got worse as time went and in the end i was flying by watching my drone in the sky because my picture on devise was too bad to view.
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