Recent content by cporter

I worked at a church back in the 90's and we had a microwave link going to a broadcast production place several miles away. We watched buildings and zoning changes to make sure our link wasn't blocked. I wonder what would happen today if a drone hit the beam path.

Or get either a sat phone or get a cell phone booster. Keep a high gain antenna in the car with a 40ft collapsible pole

Toroidal props are improving thrust and reducing noise, there is a also a wishbone configuration. Is he working one of those?

Look into the dji dock and the m30t, they specifically developed it for remote launches. https://www.dji.com/dock

time is of the essence but proper set up is just as important. Flying grid too fast, not overlapping, camera at the wrong angle can lead to missing your search subject. Look at SAR training online, some is free. It gives you plenty to think about and practice.

Best way to do search and rescue grids is to set up a mapping mission over the area. That way you are more likely to get overlapping runs The DJI apps have this or you can use apps like Skygrid and others to plan it. watch the training slides then search to find more info on the methods you...

I use weatherunderground.com. They have a wind map the covers the US and also several home weather stations. With those speed may be accurate but a lot don’t have the direction properly oriented.

If you have a pickup you could do a 30ft telescoping mast in the bed.

Given the FAA permits flight in designated zones without RID you should be able, in those areas.

The official word would be the FAA sectionals: https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/uas_facility_maps

It isn’t necessarily self destruct, you just happened to be positioned near a swamp on the rth path. Avoid that, arrange your shoot so the drone is in a good area to land as the battery drains. It is auto return because it is a controlled descent. If you run it too long and it does an...

The M3ET and H20T still use the same thermal sensor with slightly different lenses. One thing I don’t like is DJI apparently disabled features in either software or firmware on the M2EA.

Got news back from the drone shop, DJI has replaced the whole drone for me and the other person that had this issue. $1900 since mine was out of warranty, not sure about the other.

Mine was too. I turned it in and DJI says they need to replace the camera for ~$2,600. While not prevalent in the M2EA it is not exactly uncommon either. The shop here had mine and one other that recent came in.

Watch the youtube videos of the range test several people have done. They got out 18,500 feet or ~5km before they got turned back by signal loss using the standard controller attached to a phone.