4G Dongle Arrived
- Thread starter Suren
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AnzacJack
Australian Defence Veteran
Ok thanks
Just clarifying. Do you have the dongle that attaches to top of drone and the dongle fitted internally to the rc pro controller
AnzacJack
Australian Defence Veteran
Has anyone had any luck running this in the US? I'm considering buying the 4G dongle and then just popping in a mobile data-only sim card. Thoughts from anyone? Apologies in advance if this question has been answered else where.
I believe someone successfully installed the RC Pro component side to use it for cell service for maps in TX instead of hotspotting their phone, same as using a cell phone for a tablet, but no one has so far been able to get the drone side dongle to work with it, or a smart phone as a tablet in the U.S.. The RC Pro needs its own dongle for it to work.
Sucks, because the Mavic 3 and RC Pro were sold with 4G as an advertised supplemental connection feature, but then ultimately "not in the U.S." It's a super useful feature when you need to maintain signal, while temporarily flying behind an obstructing building in urban areas which block LOS for just long enough to trigger RTH.
Yeah, this feature is something that would be really handy for the type of flights you mentioned. I can get the RC PRO to work fine with the dongle, I'm sure of that. I have seen several people get that to work by installing the device inside their RC PRO. Interestingly enough that they can get the RC Pro to work with the Dongle, but we can't get it to work with the exact same dongle that is attached to the drone...That's just strange to me.
I'm sure someone will eventually find a workaround so that the drone dongle will communicate with a US cellular carrier. I use four different carrier services (due to the type of work I do) So I could potentially try them out...But I'm guessing if someone hasn't been able to get the dongle that attaches to the drone to communicate by now, it'd be a waste of my money to order two dongles.
You're right about the fact that they advertised it in a misleading way. I'm sure it was in their legal fine print that very few can read, let alone see with a magnifying glass.
TMobile supports 4G TDD LTE network (26 Band) (now more than ever since they took over Sprint) I'm seeing this works in Australia on Tmobile as well. Has anyone tried this on T-Mobile in the states? If not, I'm going to consider giving it a shot as I already have TMobile along with 4 other carriers due to the nature of my job. Just thought I'd ask first before I spend the money on two dongles.
Or, I'll just be patient and wait to see if an official version is every released in the states.
***OK, I stand corrected, there's a reason it will work in Australia and not the US on Tmobile and likely other carriers. Most carriers I know about in the US use FDD-LTE, networks (CDMA networks). While the rest of the world is still stuck on GSM.
In short, we need a network that supports the following. There are ways to change the frequencies, but they are not legal to do. So if anyone knows of a cellular provider in the United States that uses any of the following frequencies below, it SHOULD work with the drone.
4G TDD LTE Frequency Bands used in (Asia)
B38 (2600 MHz) IMT-E
B39 (1900 MHz)
B40 (2300 MHz)
B41 (2500 MHz)
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I agree that it is strange that the RC Pro dongle works but the drone side does not. However, the RC Pro dongle has an alternative justifiable use of simply adding cellular service to it, like a TriplTek, and a cellular iPad. The only use for the drone side dongle is for using a 4G connection for alternative control, which also needs to be supported through the Fly app. I believe it now works in Australia, in addition to China, and the Fly app recognizes the dongle on the drone at bootup and adds selecting the 4G as an additional control band, along with 2.4 and 5.8 For testing purposes, you don't necessarily need two dongles, unless you only have the RC Pro. You only need the drone side dongle and an RC-N1 controller with a 4G cell phone on the same carrier as the drone dongle. The problem does appear to be carrier related. Shall we start our own drone specific cellular carrier service?Yeah, this feature is something that would be really handy for the type of flights you mentioned. I can get the RC PRO to work fine with the dongle, I'm sure of that. I have seen several people get that to work by installing the device inside their RC PRO. Interestingly enough that they can get the RC Pro to work with the Dongle, but we can't get it to work with the exact same dongle that is attached to the drone...That's just strange to me.
I'm sure someone will eventually find a workaround so that the drone dongle will communicate with a US cellular carrier. I use four different carrier services (due to the type of work I do) So I could potentially try them out...But I'm guessing if someone hasn't been able to get the dongle that attaches to the drone to communicate by now, it'd be a waste of my money to order two dongles.
You're right about the fact that they advertised it in a misleading way. I'm sure it was in their legal fine print that very few can read, let alone see with a magnifying glass.
Oddly, I see other enterprise drone brands advertising 4G service support for their drones in the U.S., so not sure if it is DJI deliberately crippling the feature in the U.S. to not run afoul of VLOS, and discourage long range control, despite prominently advertising 15 km range?
I'm looking for help on this as well, I've purchased the dongle and just received it last week
It will work in the RC Pro no problem, but as far as the drone, no it will not work with the US cellular systems at the moment. Unless you do some massive hacking, which would be shut down in a hot second by the government.
Hopefully in the future I paid two hundred bucs for it I guess I'll hold on to it , Hopefully it'll work in the future
I highly doubt it will work anytime soon as Dji is only giving this option to their Chinese customers and the reason could be that other Governments do not want them having access to their cellular networks.
So I tried the 4G dongle today again after many moons of having it sit in the RC Pro and I got a 4G connection, was very weak and showing in red but I flew the drone and while flying I turned the rc n1 around and I faced the other way so it drops signal, which it did - complete loss of RC Signal with a line across the signal bar in red and the video transmission was still going and drone still flying perfectly. So it seems that it now works - for how long I don't know. Maybe others should try and post feedback.
Further playing around reveals that @Viper2097 was right, you don't need the 2nd 4G dongle for the Mavic 3 anymore because you can now hotspot from your cellphone or have the RC Pro connected to wifi and it works.
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I am in the Philippines, and I hope to buy the 4g dongle. Where I live, in an urban area, I lose signal at around 2,000 feet. I also want to be able to go to close to ground level at long distance. You just can't do this with the normal rc signal.
