Mavic Air 2 range problem

[Nele]

hi, I'm new to using a mavic air 2 with the dji fly app. And now to my problem.
Everything worked until I would test the range of how far I can fly with it. It says in the manual up to 6000 meters but I always get between 500 - 1000 meters and then the RC signal with drones disappears and starts activating RTH. I have tried in different places and open fields but the results will be the same. Have watched many youtube clips and read on various forums, some say change channel mode intransmission from auto my problem is that it is not possible to change auto mode for what you do so it is locked in the app. Does anyone know how to change it? Some even have a custom button in the app. Is there a solution to my problem? Also read on a forum page that not only I who have problems with the range from 500 - 750 meters but they did not get a good answer to it but return it to the store.

Is there any solution to the problem or just return it?

Thanx

 

[BadWolf1]

A lot depends on where you fly. Best range I've had on my drone is about 8x the worst range, and people have gone 4x further than that with the same model. If you go away from buildings people and fly reasonably high you should a lot more range than close to buildings, and low.

Keep in mind what your local laws might say about flying a drone without being able to see it. (Your profile says Sweden and I don't know what it says there, but many places you must keep the drone in sight at all times).

 

[itsneedtokno]

There's quite a few threads on here discussing this.

Mine won't fly farther than 1500 feet from my house.

I don't fly farther than 2000' typically anyway.


I'm probably going to try flying along the coast today, to see if I can get at least a mile out of it.

 

[Nele]

A lot depends on where you fly. Best range I've had on my drone is about 8x the worst range, and people have gone 4x further than that with the same model. If you go away from buildings people and fly reasonably high you should a lot more range than close to buildings, and low.

Keep in mind what your local laws might say about flying a drone without being able to see it. (Your profile says Sweden and I don't know what it says there, but many places you must keep the drone in sight at all times).

I have flown everywhere tested where you can and cannot. Yes, in Sweden you can fly at an altitude of 120 meters and have a duration of a maximum of 500 meters, but there are no problems with the range. And it is true that if you are between buildings and electricity lines and trees that you have poor coverage but that you are in a good term no buildings and trees electricity lines for several miles and still can not reach at least 3000 meters half what specs says but between 500 to 700 meters is bad. The Dji app does not allow me to change from channel auto mode to manually is strange.

 

[jj46]

Hello all. New to the forum, and I wanted to give my short experience with the MA2.

Last year, I had a Mavic 2 Pro. I live in a small housing development well outside of town and it is mostly small acreages & farms around here. With the Mavic 2 Pro, I could fly very long distances with few issues. It was very impressive. Of course I was pretty excited when they said the Air 2 has even more range than the M2P.

I'm struggling to get close to the distances I could fly with the M2P with this new Air 2. At 400' elevation, as soon as I'm 3k - 4k feet away it freaks out and returns to home, often with complete disconnects and me sweating bullets. It does eventually reconnect, but still the range seems very limited.

Footage and flying itself seem great... I want to love the unit... but I'm not sure why I have less range and significantly more glitches than with the M2P. There is a particular spot I fly to to check out... the Pro had no issues... this one barely makes it if at all, and it's a scary experience. Anyone else with apples to apples comparisons? My unit does have the latest firmware. So far, I'm very let down with the range and it may prevent me from keeping the unit.

 

[itsneedtokno]

Hello all. New to the forum, and I wanted to give my short experience with the MA2.

Last year, I had a Mavic 2 Pro. I live in a small housing development well outside of town and it is mostly small acreages & farms around here. With the Mavic 2 Pro, I could fly very long distances with few issues. It was very impressive. Of course I was pretty excited when they said the Air 2 has even more range than the M2P.

I'm struggling to get close to the distances I could fly with the M2P with this new Air 2. At 400' elevation, as soon as I'm 3k - 4k feet away it freaks out and returns to home, often with complete disconnects and me sweating bullets. It does eventually reconnect, but still the range seems very limited.

Footage and flying itself seem great... I want to love the unit... but I'm not sure why I have less range and significantly more glitches than with the M2P. There is a particular spot I fly to to check out... the Pro had no issues... this one barely makes it if at all, and it's a scary experience. Anyone else with apples to apples comparisons? My unit does have the latest firmware. So far, I'm very let down with the range and it may prevent me from keeping the unit.

This is the kinda stuff I personally want to hear... people who've owned both and can directly compare.

 

[RedField]

As a newbie on this forum, I, too, have been looking for comparisons between the "New Improved" version (MA2) and other somewhat older versions of the Mavic family. I agree, jj46's comparison is exactly what I've been looking for.

 

[Steve F]

Compared to my MA1, I would say the MA2 does solidly better. I have been able get out over 2 miles reliably when I have a clear line of sight, and am confident I can probably get another mile if I tried and planned for it. As others have stated, the signal is very sensitive to any obstacles in the path such as trees, buildings, etc. As I get further away I tend to increase the altitude in order to maintain this line-of-sight, while also staying away from other sources of interference. If I know the flight has the potential for being longer range, I will also try to plan a location with a higher vantage point. I will keep an eye on the signal strength via the app to give me feedback on this as I am flying out. If you are in a high emission environment in city areas or near transmission towers, power lines, etc., that will negatively impact your range. As a result, the performance tends to be much better in more remote areas such as the mountains or isolated areas of the coast or a lake. I also put my phone in airplane mode before flight to cut down on any interference from my own phone.

 

[ANTHONYBELGIUM]

My experience is even worse. I have a mini 2 and a Mavic Air 2. I can fly further with my mini... Maybe it’s the new remote? Don’t know. But on my MA2 it constantly loses connection, RC signal is very bad and even the “Smooth” image transmission is glitchy. I don’t even have that on the mini 2.
Isn’t the auto signal thing something to make sure it switches automatically to long range signal when at a certain distance? I don’t get why someone would want to change it manually since it does this itself?

 

[AlanM70]

It sounds like the MA2 isn't what the adds say. We had a MP1 and we do need to fly low with more interference with what we do and most of the time the max range is 3/4 to a mile. I usually had no problems with the MP1 this was supposed to be much better in flight time, Range and cameras. So we upgraded with 4 of them so each service truck would have one and I think we jumped the gun as I have been very disappointed with them. Mostly with range. I know what it is like when the above poster says its a scary thing to have it disconnect on you. The camera is pretty choice as I can used the Zoom on it for getting up close and seeing things that Couldn't before so I've been patient with it and fly carefully.

 

[AZDave]

Maximum range is a function of a lot of things, and I can think of a couple of them that could be at play here.

1. The MA2 is rated for a longer range, but in order to do that it might ... might ... be more dependent upon the controller being pointed toward the drone if some of that spec'd additional range comes from additional antenna directionality in the controller.

2. The MP1 range might be more conservatively rated, either for pure signal strength or for noise immunity, given that it probably was intended for commercial use versus the MA2 being more consumer grade.

In any case, unless A versus B testing has been done in near real time any range comparisons are mostly anecdotal:

1. As a ham radio operator I know that local RF noise and interference can be quite variable as a function of time and location.

2. Any path differences can have a significant effect due to reflections, even off terrain. Look up "Fresnel zones", and even Fresnel zones can be somewhat variable depending upon things as mundane as moisture on the vegetation. A local wireless ISP uses my ham radio tower to service over 200 homes in the valley below my lot with RF in the 5 GHz band, and he ran a comprehensive Fresnel zone analysis using topo maps to look for weak spots even though every single home in range was direct line of sight.

People tend to think of the RF we use to control our drones as being like laser beams, with good signal when we have line of sight and no signal when blocked. The actual situation is a lot more complicated.

 

[Jan Smith]

I bought a yagi antenna attachment for my MA2 on Amazon, and it extends the range by 10% or a little more, but you do have to be very careful to point the controller directly at the aircraft. We have a lot of trees near us, and the range on the MA2 seemed better in winter with the leaves down than in summer.

 

[AZDave]

I bought a yagi antenna attachment for my MA2 on Amazon, and it extends the range by 10% or a little more, but you do have to be very careful to point the controller directly at the aircraft. We have a lot of trees near us, and the range on the MA2 seemed better in winter with the leaves down than in summer.

Yes, leaves will absorb microwave energy, and even more so when wet.