RC interference- A different observation than I would have thought.

[vindibona1]

I've been doing some practice flying to smoothen out my control, work with a few different apps, so no projects at this point. But in doing so, the last few times out I noticed something that I hadn't expected.

I tend to fly off my balcony as there is a golf course about 100 feet due south, giving me a wide open space with some visual interest, allowing me to do some practice without worrying about people, traffic, buildings etc and allowing me to work on my precision. The trees are in full bloom, especially one or two right in front of my balcony, leaving only a decent enough opening to get through as I launch and land.

As I'm flying away from my building I get to about 1600' out and I'm noticing degradation of RC signal. Obviously a drone that should get several Km of range shouldn't lose it that quickly. But ok. So I fly back, but want to explore north of here and as it passes by me going north there is a swimming pool and another block or two blocks south is a large shopping center. As I fly south past my location the RC has no direct contact with the drone, as the signal has to pass through my building, through another building to the SW and over the pool, continuing toward the shopping center. I didn't go further than the major thoroughfare as I didn't want to cross heavy traffic though legally I could "transition" across now. But strangely, my RC signal was still 100%.

I guess my long winded point is that it appears that heavy tree foliage can produce more signal interference than we might give it credit for, as it appears

 

[old man mavic]

@vindibona1 its well known that the water in trees has a profound affect on the signal from the RC to the drone ,and it is more pronounced when the trees are in leaf ,another reason why trees are the number one enemy of drones

 

[Dave Maine]

Any substance containing water, or sap, will degrade a rf signal. The more moisture the more interference. The same tree blocks much more signal in the spring and summer than in fall and winter.