No GPS with 30 satellites connected?

[akdrone]

I just posted this to the DJI Forums. Your thoughts? This occurred while filming the Yukon River video I recently posted here. The other day I was filming with my Mavic 3 Pro and my new RC Pro. I was in direct line of sight, 1092feet away and 174feet up. I actually had 30 satellites. I started screen recording after seeing "No GPS. Fly with caution" on my screen a few times. It was cloudy but according to my research and experience that should not make any difference. I did have trees nearby on both sides of me (not all that close) but I have flown from within my house without a problem and again, I showed 30 satellites connected. I don't know if this was due a problem with the new RC Pro (purchased at Amazon) or the Mav 3 Pro (bought direct from DJI). I have never seen that with my older RC or RC N1. I could still return/exchange the RC Pro to Amazon. I also had odd glitches where my screen would freeze. As far as I can tell the drone continued to record but my screen was frozen. I hit "return to home" and the screen reactivated and I stopped the return to home. I've only had the RC Pro for a few flights. Thoughts? Return it? Cause? I think both the Mav3 Pro and RC Pro have GPS. Yes?

 

[msinger]

Anything of interest in the flight log?

 

[akdrone]

I'll have to do a search and remember how to view them...

 

[msinger]

You can find instructions here.

 

[mavic3usa]

Not a GPS expert here but how is the quality/accuracy of each of those satellites all the way up there? I get it you're not exactly at the top of the world but doesn't it start to decline as you approach the poles?

 

[akdrone]

It used to be an issue but now there are so many satellites as well as glosnast and whatnot that it’s not normally an issue. Where it CAN be an issue is near mountains or forests when our view is obstructed. We can get obstructed from satellite view more easily but normally it’s not an issue.

 

[Felix le Chat]

I just posted this to the DJI Forums. Your thoughts? This occurred while filming the Yukon River video I recently posted here. The other day I was filming with my Mavic 3 Pro and my new RC Pro. I was in direct line of sight, 1092feet away and 174feet up. I actually had 30 satellites. I started screen recording after seeing "No GPS. Fly with caution" on my screen a few times. It was cloudy but according to my research and experience that should not make any difference. I did have trees nearby on both sides of me (not all that close) but I have flown from within my house without a problem and again, I showed 30 satellites connected. I don't know if this was due a problem with the new RC Pro (purchased at Amazon) or the Mav 3 Pro (bought direct from DJI). I have never seen that with my older RC or RC N1. I could still return/exchange the RC Pro to Amazon. I also had odd glitches where my screen would freeze. As far as I can tell the drone continued to record but my screen was frozen. I hit "return to home" and the screen reactivated and I stopped the return to home. I've only had the RC Pro for a few flights. Thoughts? Return it? Cause? I think both the Mav3 Pro and RC Pro have GPS. Yes?

If you're interested in a possible reason, download an app named "space weather live" and search the date of your flight. If the KP was high, or there was a solar event 24 hours earlier, there would be higher than normal E.M energy hitting the ionosphere which WILL cause satellite signal dropout above a KP index of 6. This phenomenon is worse and more regular the closer to the poles, and Alaska IS pretty close. I honestly doubt there's anything fundamentally wrong with your kit.

 

[waynorth]

The Kp index has been low the past week, so I do not think that is an issue. In any case it needs to be very high to have any effect on the drone's GPS.
I think you should post the logs to let the experts here look for a possible explanation.

 

[a2tomm]

I just posted this to the DJI Forums. Your thoughts? This occurred while filming the Yukon River video I recently posted here. The other day I was filming with my Mavic 3 Pro and my new RC Pro. I was in direct line of sight, 1092feet away and 174feet up. I actually had 30 satellites. I started screen recording after seeing "No GPS. Fly with caution" on my screen a few times. It was cloudy but according to my research and experience that should not make any difference. I did have trees nearby on both sides of me (not all that close) but I have flown from within my house without a problem and again, I showed 30 satellites connected. I don't know if this was due a problem with the new RC Pro (purchased at Amazon) or the Mav 3 Pro (bought direct from DJI). I have never seen that with my older RC or RC N1. I could still return/exchange the RC Pro to Amazon. I also had odd glitches where my screen would freeze. As far as I can tell the drone continued to record but my screen was frozen. I hit "return to home" and the screen reactivated and I stopped the return to home. I've only had the RC Pro for a few flights. Thoughts? Return it? Cause? I think both the Mav3 Pro and RC Pro have GPS. Yes?

I was flying the mini3 from a remote grave yard surrounded by high trees all less the 50 yards across and saw that same blurp on my screen ,i wonder just how many different warnings DJI has that I haven't seen yet

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

Not an expert, but the fact that it reported he was connected to 30 Satellites, wouldn't that indicate a different issue with his losing GPS and not satellite interference because of KP indexes?

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

The topic two down from this on the weekly list reports the same problem. Three people reported it. Seems it might be the RC Pro after a recent update.

GPS disconnects constantly with Mavic 3 Pro

 

[Droning on and on...]

It used to be an issue but now there are so many satellites as well as glosnast and whatnot that it’s not normally an issue. Where it CAN be an issue is near mountains or forests when our view is obstructed. We can get obstructed from satellite view more easily but normally it’s not an issue.

Does the higher rate of change per distance flying east/west result in poorer accuracy?

The degenerate case is very near the (true) north pole, where longitude will be wildly varying all over the place as you fly around even a small area.

 

[BobaFut]

So a few weeks ago, I was traveling and flying in an area where there is a huge abandoned construction site, in which the site was basically just the foundation of a big building that was a tangle of concrete and rebar. I never had any problems taking off a fair distance from the site, but flying 400 feet over it absolutely scrambled my Air2s' GPS and gave me a "no gps error" despite having 15+ satellites. And even when it wasn't giving me a GPS error and I was well away from the site, the drone still didn't fly straight over a long distance (doing a hyperlapse, it ended up several degrees off of the original course). Some of that is obviously the compass, but clearly the GPS was having some issues even though I had plently of satellites. So I definitely think that a drone can "see" all the satellites it needs, but still have the signal disrupted enough to give an error and affect flying.

 

[mobilehomer]

It's not the number of satellites, but how they are spread across the sky. 30 all close together will not work, where 10 with a wide spread will be great.

 

[Meta4]

So a few weeks ago, I was traveling and flying in an area where there is a huge abandoned construction site, in which the site was basically just the foundation of a big building that was a tangle of concrete and rebar. I never had any problems taking off a fair distance from the site, but flying 400 feet over it absolutely scrambled my Air2s' GPS and gave me a "no gps error" despite having 15+ satellites.

At a height of 400 feet, nothing on the ground will have any effect on your compass and certainly no effect on your GPS..

 

[3rdof5]

It's not the number of satellites, but how they are spread across the sky. 30 all close together will not work, where 10 with a wide spread will be great.

Excellent point, one that I hadn't considered after reading many posts recently by pilots experiencing GPS loss, including my self, and we all had over 20 satelites. I was wondering if it was the recent update to allow FPV because the issue seemed appear right after that. However hearing it affected the Air2S as well makes me wonder what's going on with the satellites up there...

 

[Droning on and on...]

I've been using GPS Status app on android forever, it's a great app with a ton of functionality. Relevant to this discussion, it provides a picture of where all the sats are out to the horizon relative to your position.

 

[ericole]

I just posted this to the DJI Forums. Your thoughts? This occurred while filming the Yukon River video I recently posted here. The other day I was filming with my Mavic 3 Pro and my new RC Pro. I was in direct line of sight, 1092feet away and 174feet up. I actually had 30 satellites. I started screen recording after seeing "No GPS. Fly with caution" on my screen a few times. It was cloudy but according to my research and experience that should not make any difference. I did have trees nearby on both sides of me (not all that close) but I have flown from within my house without a problem and again, I showed 30 satellites connected. I don't know if this was due a problem with the new RC Pro (purchased at Amazon) or the Mav 3 Pro (bought direct from DJI). I have never seen that with my older RC or RC N1. I could still return/exchange the RC Pro to Amazon. I also had odd glitches where my screen would freeze. As far as I can tell the drone continued to record but my screen was frozen. I hit "return to home" and the screen reactivated and I stopped the return to home. I've only had the RC Pro for a few flights. Thoughts? Return it? Cause? I think both the Mav3 Pro and RC Pro have GPS. Yes?

Were they USA GPS satellites or a mix of other GNSS sats? I don’t believe you can ever see that many at one time from a single constellation.

 

[akdrone]

Were they USA GPS satellites or a mix of other GNSS sats? I don’t believe you can ever see that many at one time from a single constellation.

Dunno. I just know my satellite indicator on my screen showed 30 at one point.

 

[ericole]

Dunno. I just know my satellite indicator on my screen showed 30 at one point.

As I thought, only 31 GPS satellites, so no way you could ever see that many GPS satellites at one time.

"The United States is committed to maintaining the availability of at least 24 operational GPS satellites, 95% of the time. To ensure this commitment, the U.S. Space Force has been flying 31 operational GPS satellites for well over a decade." GPS.gov: Space Segment

so that is interesting...it apparently can take data from different GNSS systems. that's pretty wild as I didn't realize a device could ingest data from different GNSS systems and correlate them all onboard to give one location.