Gps

Jerry Campbell · Nov 15, 2019

Is there a gps locator that can be mounted on the drone

msinger · Nov 15, 2019

Here are a few commonly used GPS and radio trackers:

You can find some others here.

apeel · Nov 16, 2019

I was wondering about this as well And noticed that some rely on having a cell service wich would incur a monthly charge. Others are GPS only but they are expensive at around $250) However are these really needed? I thought there was a feature on the DJI Go 4 app called “Find My Drone” if it ever goes down and you want to locate it. I have not researched this myself, but is it not a useful or reliable feature for locating a downed aircraft? Thoughts?

Capt KO · Nov 16, 2019

‘Find my drone’, has limited range. Have to be close enough to hear the beeping and flashing. And the big obstacle is power enough for you to find it before it dies. Or worse, the battery pops out. GPS trackers like Marco Polo keep you informed of the location in real-time, at much greater distance and do not depend on the drone battery. That’s your choice. Just bought a used Marco Polo myself.

apeel · Nov 16, 2019

Thanks for the response, Capt KO.

AMann · Nov 16, 2019

Jerry Campbell said:
Is there a gps locator that can be mounted on the drone

As mentioned above, the Marco Polo system works pretty good, and does not need cell coverage to work. It seems that most people who end up losing their drone do it in forests, heavy brush or trees, or in neighborhoods between houses and buildings. What type of flying do you do, are you out in open spaces away from the city and cell coverage, or in places that have good cellular coverage? Along with costs, that fact alone will determine what system you should get.

stonecherub · Nov 16, 2019

I crashed a Pro last April for a stupid reason (aren't they all?) in the best of all places - the Mexican desert. It has an orange skin which, unfortunately, looks like a common local ocotillo (oko-tee-o) flower. Thus, being on top of a volcano with good binoculars offered no advantage.

The Go4 app writes a gpx track for flights on the controller. And I had prepared. In my work as a geologist, I make photomaps from Google Earth with a Universal Transverse Mercator grid spaced at 200 m. The final position of the Mavic on the controller was given in degrees-minutes-seconds but I knew this, so I had installed a free grid conversion utility on the iPad and within a few minutes of putting the binoculars away, I had drawn a pencil X on the photomap. My Garmin shows my UTM location so I followed it to the numerical position from the converter and there, camouflaged by ocotillo blooms, was the crashed drone no more than a meter away even though the Garmin listed an expected GPS error of 3 m. New set of props and it flew just fine.

But, but, but, but - I was on the desert where I can go everywhere except onto the roughest new basalt flows. A place where vegetation is sparse and none of the trees is dense enough to hide a drone. I could have not done this in my Tucson back yard.

AMann · Nov 16, 2019

stonecherub said:
I crashed a Pro last April for a stupid reason (aren't they all?) in the best of all places - the Mexican desert. It has an orange skin which, unfortunately, looks like a common local ocotillo (oko-tee-o) flower. Thus, being on top of a volcano with good binoculars offered no advantage.

The Go4 app writes a gpx track for flights on the controller. And I had prepared. In my work as a geologist, I make photomaps from Google Earth with a Universal Transverse Mercator grid spaced at 200 m. The final position of the Mavic on the controller was given in degrees-minutes-seconds but I knew this, so I had installed a free grid conversion utility on the iPad and within a few minutes of putting the binoculars away, I had drawn a pencil X on the photomap. My Garmin shows my UTM location so I followed it to the numerical position from the converter and there, camouflaged by ocotillo blooms, was the crashed drone no more than a meter away even though the Garmin listed an expected GPS error of 3 m. New set of props and it flew just fine.

But, but, but, but - I was on the desert where I can go everywhere except onto the roughest new basalt flows. A place where vegetation is sparse and none of the trees is dense enough to hide a drone. I could have not done this in my Tucson back yard.

There’s a golf story about a guy that lost his white ball amongst white toadstools, then took out a yellow ball and lost it on th next hole amongst yellow dandelions. I
ended up using two color red and white survey striped reflective tape on my M2P for the same reason you ran into. In the worse case scenario, I can go back after dark with a spotlight to light up the reflective tape, it works really well, even in heavy brush!