How common is it to lose signal?

[dronedronedrone]

New drone owner. Spent the past month flying around in fields and reading these forums.

Really enjoying the Mavic Mini. I've learned to always make sure a home point is set, use UAV Forecast.. never fly high if ground wind is 10 mph or above.

We've had some very calm days in terms of wind and temp here lately in my neck of the woods, allowing me to fly much higher than I have in the past.
I've noticed that around 280 - 300ft straight above me I tend to lose video signal (not sure if I lose control.. always get nervous at this point).

The app will notify me that it's unable to transmit video and then ask if I'd like to return home. I've only ever flown this high directly above me, or down wind.. so the rth is normally a straight land down, which I'll take over as soon as I have video signal.

To clarify, I'm still able to control with no video signal right? Is this common? It seems in videos I've watched, flyers have gone much farther and higher than I have while still maintaining signal.

Do you guys adjust your antennas mid flight to ensure signal? I'm assuming it's the fact that I'm still straight above me that's really killing signal. Complete line of site, no trees, buildings, etc. Just wide open field.

Thanks!

 

[slup]

... I'm assuming it's the fact that I'm still straight above me that's really killing signal...

You nailed it

Page 29 in the manual ...


Always try to point your RC antennas flat side towards the drone position in the sky, both horizontally & vertically. The most degrading (beside WiFi pollution) for the connection is to go out of "line of sight" ... as soon something is in between RC-AC it's just a matter of time until you have connection problems. So to go far go high ... but that have it's own risks of course.

And yes ... usually you lose the video stream before a total disconnection.

 

[brett8883]

New drone owner. Spent the past month flying around in fields and reading these forums.

Really enjoying the Mavic Mini. I've learned to always make sure a home point is set, use UAV Forecast.. never fly high if ground wind is 10 mph or above.

We've had some very calm days in terms of wind and temp here lately in my neck of the woods, allowing me to fly much higher than I have in the past.
I've noticed that around 280 - 300ft straight above me I tend to lose video signal (not sure if I lose control.. always get nervous at this point).

The app will notify me that it's unable to transmit video and then ask if I'd like to return home. I've only ever flown this high directly above me, or down wind.. so the rth is normally a straight land down, which I'll take over as soon as I have video signal.

To clarify, I'm still able to control with no video signal right? Is this common? It seems in videos I've watched, flyers have gone much farther and higher than I have while still maintaining signal.

Do you guys adjust your antennas mid flight to ensure signal? I'm assuming it's the fact that I'm still straight above me that's really killing signal. Complete line of site, no trees, buildings, etc. Just wide open field.

Thanks!

The antennas have a blind spot directly above them. Adjust the antennas so the long sides of the antenna are facing the drone.

Depends on millions of factors how far you can get before losing signal. It can happen where you lose video without losing control because the control band is much narrower than the video but it’s usually hand in hand and if you lose video control is probably not far behind. I have seen instances where people lose control but not video in which case the thing to do is to turn off the remote to force a return to home action. This is quite rare and has never happened to me personally.

Typically I can tell the connection is getting weaker long before it actually disconnects because there will be lag and pixilation of the video feed so if you don’t want to lose connection ever just stop and start coming back when you notice the video getting choppy or a delay between a command on the remote and when you see the drone doing it.

 

[Magilla Gorilla]

You should adjust your antennas per the manual:

 

[Spook2608]

Hi,

I’m a new user with just one flight in my back garden, however I am having signal loss issues.

I have stayed pretty low (no more than roof hight) and close to be sure everting was working but after about 5 minutes I get a message saying there has been a temporary connection loss, the video goes black and I have 2 red icons on the phone display. The connection does not recover but I am still able to control the drone with the joysticks.

Once I bring it back and try to connect again on the app it fails, if I then do the suggested “pair” activity that also fails, however if I turn the controller off (leaving phone connected and turned on and the drone on) and then turn the controller back on it reconnects. I can start flying again but shortly afterwards the same thing again.

I am reluctant to take the drone out and fly further as I am worried something may go wrong with the connection and I may loose or break it....

I’m using a Samsung s10 phone if that makes any difference ?

Does anyone have any suggestions how to avoid this please ?

Many thanks.

Jonathan.

 

[scro]

@Spook2608 what version of android is your s10 running? 9 or 10? I was running android 9 and all worked well, but then my s10 updated itself to android 10 and Fly app would typically not even start. I ended up downgrading to android 9 until the fly app gets updated with a fix. I've read reports that others can get the app to run for a short while on android10. Some say that after uninstalling, manually deleting the dji folder on the phone and then reinstalling they've got it to work again. That didn't work for me though.

 

[fificap]

Hi,

I cannot said that this is an absolute fix, but I do not have any unexplained disconnection since I use my phone in "airplane"mode with the RC. Give this a try!

 

[pmshop]

New drone owner. Spent the past month flying around in fields and reading these forums.

Really enjoying the Mavic Mini. I've learned to always make sure a home point is set, use UAV Forecast.. never fly high if ground wind is 10 mph or above.

We've had some very calm days in terms of wind and temp here lately in my neck of the woods, allowing me to fly much higher than I have in the past.
I've noticed that around 280 - 300ft straight above me I tend to lose video signal (not sure if I lose control.. always get nervous at this point).

The app will notify me that it's unable to transmit video and then ask if I'd like to return home. I've only ever flown this high directly above me, or down wind.. so the rth is normally a straight land down, which I'll take over as soon as I have video signal.

To clarify, I'm still able to control with no video signal right? Is this common? It seems in videos I've watched, flyers have gone much farther and higher than I have while still maintaining signal.

Do you guys adjust your antennas mid flight to ensure signal? I'm assuming it's the fact that I'm still straight above me that's really killing signal. Complete line of site, no trees, buildings, etc. Just wide open field.

Thanks!

Very.
I have not been able to make distances that my Spark and Mavic Air has made without losing connection.
Nor have I been able to, lets say - "match other distances" - that my Spark and Mavic Air can reach easily without losing connection.

Just this morning my craft was 200ft up and every 5 minutes I got a signal warning will full bars on the controller scale.

 

[DanMan32]

Note that there are two types of "connection loss". One is between app and RC, where RC still has connection and control of AC. Most causes of this type of connection loss is USB issues, other being app crash. Latter usually recovers within a minute.

Other is RC to AC connection loss. Your signal loss setting would soon prevail here, default being RTH (only option with Mini).

App is clearer as to which disconnect type you're dealing with than it used to be a couple years ago.

As for lower signal quality overhead, besides antenna orientation which can be adjusted, you also have a polarity issue. With the antenna horizontal to radiate upward, AC's antennas are still vertical. Still, it in theory should make it up to 400ft when it can usually go as far as 1000ft outward.

 

[DanMan32]

Very.
I have not been able to make distances that my Spark and Mavic Air has made without losing connection.
Nor have I been able to, lets say - "match other distances" - that my Spark and Mavic Air can reach easily without losing connection.

Just this morning my craft was 200ft up and every 5 minutes I got a signal warning will full bars on the controller scale.

Could be the warning is touchy about the briefest interruptions, whereas the meter is average weighted.

 

[Back Country]

I've found I lose signal because of obvious factors, trees obstructing VLOS in particular, more than anything else.

I tried messing around to see how high I could fly straight up overhead the other evening and managed to get 385m in height without signal interruption, I brought the drone back at that point so I presume I could have kept going for some time still. This was with the antennas aligned properly with the flat surfaces pointed straight upwards.

 

[Spook2608]

Thanks everyone. I will give it a try with my phone in flight mode when the wind is low enough.

DJi support have suggested I also try using another phone just to rule that out, which is easier said than done of course ...