Radiation (Geiger counter) or RF detector?

[JackV]

Hi All,

I just get a new Mavic Air 2 and loving it. My previous drone crashed after getting interference that brought it down with a bang.

To avoid this in the future should I be sweeping the area with either a Giger Counter or some kind of RF detector before I fly anywhere.


I had two crashes with the same drone in vastly different areas. One was near an old IBM site. My old drone was stable and had no issues until it lost connection with the controller. Immediately, the drone hover about 90 feet above the ground despite me trying everything to gain control. Eventually it ran out of battery and hit the ground. I repaired it over a few weeks then went to an entirely different location. A high school field. It flew great again without issue until I got close to a metal shed. It lost control and came crashing down. This time it broke a motor arm and the camera became totally damaged.

So given that I have a new drone, should I be doing something special before flying anywhere new?

Advise greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Sweeping with The Giger is really not needed. but definitely on the cool factor for UFO activity.

Magnetic Interference is not as common place as it once was with the Phantom Series Drones.

I cannot remember the last time I had a magnetic Interference warning with the Mavics and we Fly from inside the Car a lot.

The only thing we do special is if were flying over a new body of water , we will gear the drone up with Rescue Jacket that allows the drone to float on the water in the case of a forced landing.

So the new Drones are handling Magnetic Interference much better , another example of drones getting better
is recently I flew into a Geo Zone and the Drone Stopped flying forward when I hit the edge. , there was a Red Perimeter box on the smart controller but no warning pop up window.

The Drone did not crash or force land because of it . , it just stopped flying , I than flew back to the proper zone so overall its a much better experience and getting better all the time.


Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your AIR 2 In the RAIN and LAND on the Water.

 

[crazeuk]

Do you not have it RTH?

 

[SkyeHigh]

Neither would be of anymore use than a tin foil hat.

Seriously though, there is Zero ionising radiation in the atmosphere that can ever have any impact on your drone. As for RF interference again very, very unlikely to have caused your crash. Interference won’t cause a drone to ‘drop’ out of the sky. A hardware or software fault may.

The aircraft and controller are ‘relatively’ immune to interference on the same frequency that your controller and aircraft use but a signal strong enough can potentially swamp the front end electronics of the receivers but the effect more likely will either leave the aircraft in a hover and/or loss of control and video. It won’t make it crash.

It would be good if you still had the logs from the last flight for some of the guys on the forum to analyse.

 

[JackV]

Do you not have it RTH?

The old Hudson zino did not take any commands from the controller or software. Just hung there until the battery ran out then dropped like a stone

 

[JackV]

Neither would be of anymore use than a tin foil hat.

Seriously though, there is Zero ionising radiation in the atmosphere that can ever have any impact on your drone. As for RF interference again very, very unlikely to have caused your crash. Interference won’t cause a drone to ‘drop’ out of the sky. A hardware or software fault may.

The aircraft and controller are ‘relatively’ immune to interference on the same frequency that your controller and aircraft use but a signal strong enough can potentially swamp the front end electronics of the receivers but the effect more likely will either leave the aircraft in a hover and/or loss of control and video. It won’t make it crash.

It would be good if you still had the logs from the last flight for some of the guys on the forum to analyse.

I was thinking that there was something buried that was emitting something. The drone went up fine, then I could not menuver it or adjust the throttle. So strange. And the metal shed thing was also another mystery. It didn’t even record any telemetry.

 

[Dave Maine]

You need to get a deeper understanding of radio frequency signals before speculating. We are constantly bathed in radio frequency signals from a huge number of sources constantly. The DJIdrones are sensitive only to 2 bands 2.5 ghz and 5 ghz. These frequencies are dedicated to WIFI usage, and are strong and unpredictable.

There are RF measurement instruments that can be purchased additional used, which give very accurate measurements. Most DJI drones have the ability to display all the RF channels in use, and which channels are the most busy. If you allow it, the drone will monitor all of them, and switch from busy ones to less busy ones automatically.

 

[Stealth01]

Did you retrieve the flight data from the drone? You need to post it for analysis of what occurred.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

I was thinking that there was something buried that was emitting something. The drone went up fine, then I could not menuver it or adjust the throttle. So strange. And the metal shed thing was also another mystery. It didn’t even record any telemetry.

Doing a little research on the Zino there are many reports of the drone behaving this way most likely do t magnetic interference. so your take off position could definitely have been responsible as that shed or what was in the shed could have slammed that Compass in that drone rendering it fully compromised.

I would take the Air 2 that you have now and Run the Exact same Flight , to gain some confidence in this drone , maybe even fly over the Shed , would make for a great video on the Unknown and fly with the Transmission Data Window open to see how your signal is effected ,

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your AIR 2 in the Rain and Land on the Water.

 

[dave canada]

Hi All,

I just get a new Mavic Air 2 and loving it. My previous drone crashed after getting interference that brought it down with a bang.

To avoid this in the future should I be sweeping the area with either a Giger Counter or some kind of RF detector before I fly anywhere.


I had two crashes with the same drone in vastly different areas. One was near an old IBM site. My old drone was stable and had no issues until it lost connection with the controller. Immediately, the drone hover about 90 feet above the ground despite me trying everything to gain control. Eventually it ran out of battery and hit the ground. I repaired it over a few weeks then went to an entirely different location. A high school field. It flew great again without issue until I got close to a metal shed. It lost control and came crashing down. This time it broke a motor arm and the camera became totally damaged.

So given that I have a new drone, should I be doing something special before flying anywhere new?

Advise greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I had two go down in the same area and it was mag intereference it changed the altitude in the drone some how and threw the gps off about 200 yards until you figure it out I would just find somewhere else to fly The third one I found with marco polo good luck

 

[JackV]

You need to get a deeper understanding of radio frequency signals before speculating. We are constantly bathed in radio frequency signals from a huge number of sources constantly. The DJIdrones are sensitive only to 2 bands 2.5 ghz and 5 ghz. These frequencies are dedicated to WIFI usage, and are strong and unpredictable.

There are RF measurement instruments that can be purchased additional used, which give very accurate measurements. Most DJI drones have the ability to display all the RF channels in use, and which channels are the most busy. If you allow it, the drone will monitor all of them, and switch from busy ones to less busy ones automatically.

Thank you so much for the help. My old drone did not have all the tech that the mavic air 2 has to say the least. This thing is sturdy when hovering even in strong winds. The Zino would sway and upon initial lift off and would drop a few inches even on a calm day (known as the Hubsan drop).

When using the (mavic air 2) MA2, I will be diligent about the environment but don’t see a need for a RF device or Geiger counter.

thanks for everyone’s input.

 

[dave canada]

enjoy !!!

 

[cgmaxed]

Neither would be of anymore use than a tin foil hat.

Seriously though, there is Zero ionising radiation in the atmosphere that can ever have any impact on your drone. As for RF interference again very, very unlikely to have caused your crash. Interference won’t cause a drone to ‘drop’ out of the sky. A hardware or software fault may.

The aircraft and controller are ‘relatively’ immune to interference on the same frequency that your controller and aircraft use but a signal strong enough can potentially swamp the front end electronics of the receivers but the effect more likely will either leave the aircraft in a hover and/or loss of control and video. It won’t make it crash.

It would be good if you still had the logs from the last flight for some of the guys on the forum to analyse.

SkyeHigh is correct.