Red zones..orange zones??

[Jimbo41158]

Hello all. Kind of a newbie here... With a newbie question... I am in an area that's quite remote... And yet I'm told I'm flying in an orange Zone. Probably some helipad nearby. I flew my mavic air to about 1,600 ft feet over a lake and it warned me it was losing signal. I was using the parabolic signal enhancer and yet it told me I should return home. I did and nothing bad happened. Is this normal? Is the fact that I was flying in an orange is own affecting my range?

 

[brass_monkey]

Your range won't be affected by zones. If you try entering a prohibited area your drone will just not respond to the controls trying to get it to enter. You won't get signal errors.

Have you flown that route before? Particularly without the range extenders. I've no experience of them myself but I've read a few adverse reviews.

 

[Bcampo]

Hello all...I flew my mavic air to about 1,600 ft feet over a lake...

Just for clarification, you flew 1,600 ft downrange over a lake or your altitude was 1,600 ft?

 

[DanMan32]

Orange-dark yellow is an enhanced warning zone. It should just warn you, but it may pop up a dialog to have you confirm responsibility. In such a dialog, there will be three checkboxes to check. They may be hard to see and even click on.
Enhanced doesn't usually do this but it may prompt you to prove your an actual adult human by entering a valid credit card # or mobile number to sent a code by text. That needs internet at site.

Blue zones definitely will need you to confirm by CC or txt but will only prompt when you attempt to start motors. Before that it will say NFZ/Unable to take off.

 

[Jimbo41158]

Your range won't be affected by zones. If you try entering a prohibited area your drone will just not respond to the controls trying to get it to enter. You won't get signal errors.

Have you flown that route before? Particularly without the range extenders. I've no experience of them myself but I've read a few adverse reviews.

HI,

No, this was the first time in this area. Maybe it was the trees? See attached. I was about 200ft high and 1600 ft away

 

[Jimbo41158]

Thank you all for your feedback.. Much appreciated.. I'll experiment more with this parabolic range extender..

 

[brass_monkey]

Looks like a nice area to fly in. If you had visual line of sight I'd expect you to still have signal. However, those trees could easily block the signal if the drone was behind them.

The other possibility is that there's a property emitting WiFi at the end of that lake or a radio tower sending a strong signal that blocks the receiver on the drone so it can't hear the remote controller.

I have exactly that issue with a tower near where I live. Whenever I get within about 300 metres of it I lose signal and the drone returns to home.