Hello everyone, I am knew to using a drone, but I think I am having an issue that is not normal.

I have the Phantom 3 Advanced and I am trying to do a little mapping with the Dronelink app. My issue us the lack of range the drone can move away from me before it loses connection, which causes the drone to abort the mission.

The drone loses connection between 300 and 400m away from me consistantly. This severly inhibits my ability to do any type of mapping with autonomous flights. As far as I know the specifications of this model are 1,000m or more in good conditions, I am in a forested area but it does not seem like that should reduce my range by more than half.

Is there an issue with my drone? What are the software or hardware options for increasing my range?

Thanks for the help.

Welcome tkstevens92 How high were you flying?

You probably said your problem in your post "you are in a forested area".
At  the high frequencies these use, they are basically "line of sight". Trees will severely attenuate your signal strength.
As shown in the video, going higher with the drone will possibly help but if you are at ground level amongst trees, it won't help a lot.
You need to get the transmitter out of or above the trees to somewhere where you have "line of sight of the mission.

JetSam Posted at 10-4 22:03
Welcome tkstevens92 How high were you flying?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7M9JtfVwQE

Lower than I wanted to, which is a separate issue. I planned a mapping flight for 50m but for some reason the flight was around 25m.

cheddar-man Posted at 10-4 23:50
You probably said your problem in your post "you are in a forested area".
At  the high frequencies these use, they are basically "line of sight". Trees will severely attenuate your signal strength.
As shown in the video, going higher with the drone will possibly help but if you are at ground level amongst trees, it won't help a lot.

Unfortunately that is not really an option. it is bottomland hardwood forest, meaning it is flat. Do you think any of the controller attachments could help the signal strength?

fans85bfbe41 Posted at 10-5 05:59
Unfortunately that is not really an option. it is bottomland hardwood forest, meaning it is flat. Do you think any of the controller attachments could help the signal strength?

Does anyone have any input on whether a range extender on the controller might help? I have heard conflicting things from a few people I have asked.

If you are trying to send the signals through a forrest the answer is no, I doubt anything would help. As I said before, at the frequencies these things work they're basically Line-of-sight.

The only thing the "range extender" antennas do is to direct the signal better, putting more where you want it. If you look in the video it shows the transmission pattern from the antennas on the RC, and half the signal, or more, is wasted, goes in the opposite direction to where you want it.

You would certainly increase your range by flying higher so that there are effectively less trees between you and the drone, but not a lot.

Climb to the top of a tree????

cheddar-man Posted at 10-5 13:37
If you are trying to send the signals through a forrest the answer is no, I doubt anything would help. As I said before, at the frequencies these things work they're basically Line-of-sight.

The only thing the "range extender" antennas do is to direct the signal better, putting more where you want it. If you look in the video it shows the transmission pattern from the antennas on the RC, and half the signal, or more, is wasted, goes in the opposite direction to where you want it.

Thanks. I am trying to think of ways to get higher.

Hello there tkstevens92. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Can you please fly your DJI drone to a different location with less interference to see if the issue will still persist? The said DJI drone might have picked up magnetic interference from the area. That might be the reason why you are experiencing these issues. In addition, please check the post of JetSam on post #2 on  DJI tutorial video on DJI Remote Controller Antenna Best Practices. Thank you.