Not impressed with the MA

[mavic911]

I had the spark before this and was flying it quite well. Full disclosure though, I had a range extender by Titan, but this thing was able to fly 600m easily.

I just purchased the MA, and over the last few days have been unable to fly due to wind conditions and whatnot but finally yesterday on my maiden flight at night, I took it to the roof and gave it a shot.

It went about 90m, and then complained about weak image signal, and the screen on my iphone just went pure gray. I somewhat panicked, and thought it would just RTH after no input, but after waiting 30 seconds or so, nothing happened.

I noticed the sticks were responding, but just no feed. Luckily I'm pretty experienced (having flown RC helicopters in the past) and was able to land it. Is this expected? Firmware is the latest on the MA 400. 90m on a rooftop in SF where I have previously flown my spark seems to me that the MA is defective. Anyone else experience the same ?

 

[z28lt1]

What channels are available for you to select in manual mode for wifi, and what country are you in?

There was an issue with it not coming out of the factory limited mode with IOS, that was fixed for most people with the latest ios app (are you using the latest version of the app?) but a handful of people had to do some magic (reinstalls and such) to get it into FCC/CE mode.

 

[mavic911]

I'm in San Francisco. I have both 2.4 and 5.8. I was using 5.8 yesterday. I'll check on interference, but I doubt there was any. It's strange that it loses video signal but still responds.

 

[Superdaddy]

I too have had those frustrations but airplane mode and custom channel selection have done wonders for the range of my MA.

 

[sberfield]

Really stupid question, but did you fold down the antennas on the quad?

 

[InvisibleName]

I had the spark before this and was flying it quite well. Full disclosure though, I had a range extender by Titan, but this thing was able to fly 600m easily.

I just purchased the MA, and over the last few days have been unable to fly due to wind conditions and whatnot but finally yesterday on my maiden flight at night, I took it to the roof and gave it a shot.

It went about 90m, and then complained about weak image signal, and the screen on my iphone just went pure gray. I somewhat panicked, and thought it would just RTH after no input, but after waiting 30 seconds or so, nothing happened.

I noticed the sticks were responding, but just no feed. Luckily I'm pretty experienced (having flown RC helicopters in the past) and was able to land it. Is this expected? Firmware is the latest on the MA 400. 90m on a rooftop in SF where I have previously flown my spark seems to me that the MA is defective. Anyone else experience the same ?

Don’t try & use your bad example to suggest that ALL MAs are defective! I’m easily getting 2.5km and have flown as far as 3.9km with direct LOS.

 

[Air Beetle]

lol, san francisco is the epicenter of the silicon valley - more interference there than any place on earth.

 

[Drone Master]

Interferences? Ummmm..
I say try relocating to new area and try again.
I have not been disappointed in my MA at all based on what DJI has advertised it to do. It is considered to be more of a local drone rather than a longer range drone. And has the better camera which I’m good with.

 

[Wacker2611]

I think you need to test it a bit more before you bin it.

 

[MrRobville]

Although in general fine, I have to say that I once had quite a lot of interference in a rural area with an occasional disconnect and heavy delay in video feed. I landed the craft, swapped the battery, rebooted Go, and all was fine. After I was done flying, I tested the suspicious battery again, but this time it flew fine as well.
Since I had done a reboot of the phone and DJI Go in the meantime, I'd say there's a chance that Go is having seizure. It wouldn't be the first time.

The Air's signal isn't as solid as a Pro, but it is interesting that you note that you had way better experiences with the Spark. Try to fly it a couple more times to see if the issue persists. Perhaps on different locations also. And, of course make sure that the phone is not cluttered with background processes.

 

[Jameslavis]

I’m with the consensus here. Average 2-3km out. If you are in the city, especially San Fran, of course you will have interference. The epicentre of tech.

 

[MavicMo]

Oh, don't ever dare speak about your experience with the Mavic Air in this section or you're labeled a "hater" or worse yet, you don't know what you are doing...

Your experience isn't much different than mine. I own multiple DJI drones and frequently fly from the same location, the same day maybe a short span of time apart yet people say I'm doing something wrong with my MA when I say I don't get near the distance as I do with my Spark (or Mavic Pro, Inspire, Phantom 4) in wifi dense areas, or I lose signal, get laggy video, etc. Places where I have ZERO issues with my other DJI drones...

In wifi dense areas (the 'burbs), I get maybe 600' out before the video feed gets laggy and starts momentarily dropping out. At 800' its very hit and miss. I've loss connection 3 times. In one case I had no image but it still responded to stick inputs (since I was flying LOS I could still pilot it). The other two times it went into RTH and returned on it's own.

In open spaces, I've gone out as far as 1500' with no issues. I lose sight of it at that point, but I feel I'd get close to what DJI claims.

I have to laugh at these comments regarding the proximity of San Francisco to "Silicon Valley" therefore "interference" is going to be greater... OMG, seriously? Take a look at a map... Cupertino (as an example) to San Francisco is 42 miles... The interference is simply an artifact of living in a densely populated city...

I've flown my drones in Milpitas which is way closer to SF with ZERO issues (haven't flown my MA there yet)...

I had the spark before this and was flying it quite well. Full disclosure though, I had a range extender by Titan, but this thing was able to fly 600m easily.

I just purchased the MA, and over the last few days have been unable to fly due to wind conditions and whatnot but finally yesterday on my maiden flight at night, I took it to the roof and gave it a shot.

It went about 90m, and then complained about weak image signal, and the screen on my iphone just went pure gray. I somewhat panicked, and thought it would just RTH after no input, but after waiting 30 seconds or so, nothing happened.

I noticed the sticks were responding, but just no feed. Luckily I'm pretty experienced (having flown RC helicopters in the past) and was able to land it. Is this expected? Firmware is the latest on the MA 400. 90m on a rooftop in SF where I have previously flown my spark seems to me that the MA is defective. Anyone else experience the same ?

 

[InvisibleName]

Oh, don't ever dare speak about your experience with the Mavic Air in this section or you're labeled a "hater" or worse yet, you don't know what you are doing...

Your experience isn't much different than mine. I own multiple DJI drones and frequently fly from the same location, the same day maybe a short span of time apart yet people say I'm doing something wrong with my MA when I say I don't get near the distance as I do with my Spark (or Mavic Pro, Inspire, Phantom 4) in wifi dense areas, or I lose signal, get laggy video, etc. Places where I have ZERO issues with my other DJI drones...

In wifi dense areas (the 'burbs), I get maybe 600' out before the video feed gets laggy and starts momentarily dropping out. At 800' its very hit and miss. I've loss connection 3 times. In one case I had no image but it still responded to stick inputs (since I was flying LOS I could still pilot it). The other two times it went into RTH and returned on it's own.

In open spaces, I've gone out as far as 1500' with no issues. I lose sight of it at that point, but I feel I'd get close to what DJI claims.

I have to laugh at these comments regarding the proximity of San Francisco to "Silicon Valley" therefore "interference" is going to be greater... OMG, seriously? Take a look at a map... Cupertino (as an example) to San Francisco is 42 miles... The interference is simply an artifact of living in a densely populated city...

I've flown my drones in Milpitas which is way closer to SF with ZERO issues (haven't flown my MA there yet)...

No, most of us just give a balanced response that we don't have the same problem.

 

[MrRobville]

While I think it's good to mention that the Air in general is capable of flying quite a distance, we should indeed not claim that the signal is always flawless, because it isn't. That's why it is good for OP to make a few more tries to make sure it wasn't either a glitch in Go or a temporary noise within the area and WIFI range the Air operates in. If he finds a consistent disruption of the signal, while making sure all the antenna's are pointed correctly and the phone isn't downloading the latest Candy Crush update and social media feed while flying, then he'd indeed be better off with something like the Pro I reckon.

But it is nice to find out why it isn't working in OP's case. If it turns out that manually selecting another WIFI band fixes it, then we can all learn from that.

 

[Rayray]

I'm in San Francisco. I have both 2.4 and 5.8. I was using 5.8 yesterday. I'll check on interference, but I doubt there was any. It's strange that it loses video signal but still responds.

2.4 seems to work better for me. No problems with LOS. I'm sure you'll get it worked out with more testing...

 

[WayneMHK]

Oh, don't ever dare speak about your experience with the Mavic Air in this section or you're labeled a "hater" or worse yet, you don't know what you are doing...

I have no problem with folks looking for answers to their specific issue. My problem is with subject titles like "Not impressed with the MA" when only a single flight attempt has been made. There are a multitude of reasons why the OP had issues on their first flight, most of them unrelated to the performance of the MA.

 

[Moving Zen]

I had the spark before this and was flying it quite well. Full disclosure though, I had a range extender by Titan, but this thing was able to fly 600m easily.

I just purchased the MA, and over the last few days have been unable to fly due to wind conditions and whatnot but finally yesterday on my maiden flight at night, I took it to the roof and gave it a shot.

It went about 90m, and then complained about weak image signal, and the screen on my iphone just went pure gray. I somewhat panicked, and thought it would just RTH after no input, but after waiting 30 seconds or so, nothing happened.

I noticed the sticks were responding, but just no feed. Luckily I'm pretty experienced (having flown RC helicopters in the past) and was able to land it. Is this expected? Firmware is the latest on the MA 400. 90m on a rooftop in SF where I have previously flown my spark seems to me that the MA is defective. Anyone else experience the same ?

lol how did your spark do before you put the range extender on it?

Nope, I haven't experienced the same. I've flown my MA out to 7.2K ft without a range extender. Maybe put the drones on equal footing before you trash the Air.

 

[Red Baron]

lol, san francisco is the epicenter of the silicon valley - more interference there than any place on earth.

THIS!

 

[mavic911]

Yeah I was flying well with the Spark (even without the extender). Though SF is the epicenter of silicon valley, where I was, was pretty remote away from the city.

If I could blame something, perhaps it was the low cloud cover? That shouldn't affect it right ?

 

[InvisibleName]

Yeah I was flying well with the Spark (even without the extender). Though SF is the epicenter of silicon valley, where I was, was pretty remote away from the city.

If I could blame something, perhaps it was the low cloud cover? That shouldn't affect it right ?

Not unless you were actually flying IN the cloud, I would have thought!