Hi everyone,
I read part of this giant thread but I couldn't find a definitive answer to my plight. I am in Europe and I can't seem to switch to FCC mode while in the field.
TL;DR: when the drone gets GPS signal, the RC-drone link won't reset after switching modes and even rebooting everything makes it stay in CE mode.
I use Android for my Air (in good part due to the easiness of switching to FCC mode) and everything's been fine, however I've been trying DroneDeploy with the Mavic Air and it reverted to CE mode. No problem, I thought, just do the whole FakeGPS thing again. Except... I just can't make it work while in the field. I've tried every single possible sequence of events: link the RC to the bird first, then connect to USB; do the reverse; keep the app open, keep it closed, have it opened by Android; use my iPhone as a hotspot so there's data (which I don't hve directly on that Android phone as it's a secondary device for me), keep wifi off entirely, even enable airplane mode, etc.
I do occasionally manage to get the message to switch to a different area (generally when FakeGPS is active, so it's when it should switch to FCC mode) but the link between the RC and the Mavic Air never resets. Even turning everything off and on at that point (whether I kill the DJI Go 4 app and/or FakeGPS or not in between) will always show 13 channels in hte 2.4 range. Choosing a channel manually won't help either. I literally wasted half a battery of the Air doing tests in the field while mosquitos feasted on my legs.
But, and this is the odd thing, as soon as I got home — 5 minutes later as I was in a field just out of here — it worked perfectly on the first attempt. I did absolutely nothing different than in the field, the only difference is that the Air didn't get any GPS signal as I was inside (and I had wifi from broadband, so we can rule wifi/data availability out): enabled FakeGPS, turned everything on, got the message, hit okay, the RC LED went red and then green again, and I was in FCC mode.
I did watch
which was recommended in this thread, and I do not have to set it up again after switching to FCC mode; if I'm outside GPS it just unlinks and relinks the RC to the drone; if I'm under GPS nothing happens, not even if I reboot everything. Essentially, it's as if it sees that the drone is in CE mode and it ignores the hack.
I'm using DJI Go 4.3.0 on Android 7 (Moto G5, but I doubt that makes any difference).
Is there *any* way to restore FCC mode in the field? It's getting quite frustrating, not so much for DroneDeploy (it was just a test), but rather because I'm kind of terrified I may accidentally switch it back to CE mode and be unable to get it back to FCC mode.
Any help is most welcome... I got Nutella to offer in exchange.