Sudden loss of signal advice / precautions?

[Eagle430]

I have a paid job of a big event that i have to do in 2 days,
Problem is...there are warnings on my local dji forums and even from the dji dealer that during the last week a lot of drones lost signal all of a sudden (suspecting a lot of gps interference from nearby countries due to the middle east war), a few drones also had crashed due to this, the situation described by persons who had this issue is: they had enough satellites for safe take off , then all of a sudden and when going above 22-25 meters of altitude satellites were turned to 0 and the lost connection / atti mode was turning on on the controller. Some people were able to bring back their drone, others said the drone kept flying straight until it crashed.

I will keep the drone close to me and will not be using any of the gps depended intelligent flight modes, for sure its a very scary thing to happen.
I am using n1 controller and an ipad mini 6 with out built gps. I have set my drone/ controller settings to when signal is lost to return home at a height of 40meters

Any advice of anything i can do as a precaution before going to the job / anyt advice of what should i do other than a panic attack and try to fly the drone back to me manually in case it happens to me as well? I don't know if calibrating the drone when i go to that location can help as well?

 

[waynorth]

Do not confuse loss of GPS and loss of connection, they have nothing to do with each other. Loss of GPS means your drone turns to ATTI mode, but you can still control it.
Loss of GPS does not cause loss of connection between the drone and controller.

 

[Meta4]

I have a paid job of a big event that i have to do in 2 days,
Problem is...there are warnings on my local dji forums and even from the dji dealer that during the last week a lot of drones lost signal all of a sudden (suspecting a lot of gps interference from nearby countries due to the middle east war)

There is a lot of interference to GPS in your area:

GPSJAM GPS/GNSS Interference Map

Map showing possible GPS interference around 35.243, 34.779 on 2024-04-04.

gpsjam.org

a few drones also had crashed due to this

Drones don't crash because of loss of GPS.
Drones crash because their owners don't have much experience and fly badly.

the situation described by persons who had this issue is: they had enough satellites for safe take off , then all of a sudden and when going above 22-25 meters of altitude satellites were turned to 0 and the lost connection / atti mode was turning on on the controller.

You don't lose connection if you lose GPS.

I will keep the drone close to me and will not be using any of the gps depended intelligent flight modes, for sure its a very scary thing to happen.
I am using n1 controller and an ipad mini 6 with out built gps.

None of that matters at all.
Your drone has a GPS receive that's the one that matters.

I have set my drone/ controller settings to when signal is lost to return home at a height of 40meters

Lose GPS and your drone won't be able to RTH

Any advice of anything i can do as a precaution before going to the job / anyt advice of what should i do other than a panic attack and try to fly the drone back to me manually in case it happens to me as well? I don't know if calibrating the drone when i go to that location can help as well?

No amount of calibrating anything would make any difference.

I would recommend not flying because you don't have enough understanding of how your drone works and without GPS, you would have trouble.
If you do fly, be ready to descend if you lose GPS when going above a certain height.

 

[Eagle430]

I would recommend not flying because you don't have enough understanding of how your drone works and without GPS, you would have trouble.
If you do fly, be ready to descend if you lose GPS when going above a certain height.

I would also recommend you not driving your car because you don't have enough understanding of how your engine fuel and electronics work

 

[justhangingaround]

yeh that GPS jam map that meta shared for you sure shows you in it,mate your grumpyer than me and made me laugh,no disrespect meant in that, good info above and spot on
If your keeping it close just go atti mode after launch and fly it, just be more careful if windy,sure you alread know this , sure you know 2 that each situation different , you join 2020 so those panic days should be long gone and that's worst thing to do,just let go sticks and regroup and off again,
Be good to read what you saw as its good to know what's goin on in this crazy place
awaiting my recommendation

 

[Meta4]

I would also recommend you not driving your car because you don't have enough understanding of how your engine fuel and electronics work

You might, but I haven't given you any idea of how good or bad my knowledge of my car's engine is.
But you have given several clues that indicate you are quite confused about how your drone works.
You came here asking for advice, but now aren't very gracious accepting it.

 

[Eagle430]

yeh that GPS jam map that meta shared for you sure shows you in it,mate your grumpyer than me and made me laugh,no disrespect meant in that, good info above and spot on
If your keeping it close just go atti mode after launch and fly it, just be more careful if windy,sure you alread know this , sure you know 2 that each situation different , you join 2020 so those panic days should be long gone and that's worst thing to do,just let go sticks and regroup and off again,
Be good to read what you saw as its good to know what's goin on in this crazy place
awaiting my recommendation

Can you switch manually to atti mode on a mavic 3 and dji n1 controller?

 

[Meta4]

Can you switch manually to atti mode on a mavic 3 and dji n1 controller?

No you can't.
But it won't matter because if you lose GPS, your drone will be in Atti Mode because Atti Mode is Normal mode with no GPS.
In Atti Mode your drone won't have horizontal position holding or brakes, so the control will feel very different.
If you don't have experience in Atti Mode, you might think the drone isn't responding to your commands or that you've lost control.

 

[waynorth]

Can you switch manually to atti mode on a mavic 3 and dji n1 controller?

Only if you "hack" your drone.
Read here: Drone-Hacks, the best way to hack your DJI Drone - Hacks
And here: Як увімкнути режим ATTI на DJI Mavic 3 та закриті налаштування дрону – Академія Dronarium

 

[Mrktn]

I have a paid job of a big event that i have to do in 2 days,
Problem is...there are warnings on my local dji forums and even from the dji dealer that during the last week a lot of drones lost signal all of a sudden (suspecting a lot of gps interference from nearby countries due to the middle east war), a few drones also had crashed due to this, the situation described by persons who had this issue is: they had enough satellites for safe take off , then all of a sudden and when going above 22-25 meters of altitude satellites were turned to 0 and the lost connection / atti mode was turning on on the controller. Some people were able to bring back their drone, others said the drone kept flying straight until it crashed.

I will keep the drone close to me and will not be using any of the gps depended intelligent flight modes, for sure its a very scary thing to happen.
I am using n1 controller and an ipad mini 6 with out built gps. I have set my drone/ controller settings to when signal is lost to return home at a height of 40meters

Any advice of anything i can do as a precaution before going to the job / anyt advice of what should i do other than a panic attack and try to fly the drone back to me manually in case it happens to me as well? I don't know if calibrating the drone when i go to that location can help as well?

Let us know how you get on, I’m also currently in Cyprus.

 

[Conservative Nihilist]

There is a lot of interference to GPS in your area:

GPSJAM GPS/GNSS Interference Map

Map showing possible GPS interference around 35.243, 34.779 on 2024-04-04.

gpsjam.org

Drones don't crash because of loss of GPS.
Drones crash because their owners don't have much experience and fly badly.

You don't lose connection if you lose GPS.

None of that matters at all.
Your drone has a GPS receive that's the one that matters.

Lose GPS and your drone won't be able to RTH


No amount of calibrating anything would make any difference.

I would recommend not flying because you don't have enough understanding of how your drone works and without GPS, you would have trouble.
If you do fly, be ready to descend if you lose GPS when going above a certain height.

That GPS interference map is just amazing. Never seen anything like it. Curiously, Ukraine shows zero GPS interference on this map, perhaps because wartime interference is a given that need not be mapped.

 

[Mrktn]

Just to update - flew today in Cyprus at Landa Beach heading towards Nissi Beach when lost all satellites, had 32 then suddenly zero, connection to rc also lost. Descended and then RTH and managed to get it home.

GPS jam maps have the whole of Cyprus in solid red. I’ll continue to be careful tomorrow but just to make anyone who is in Cyprus aware.

 

[Eagle430]

The situations with drones flying away was due to gps jam and not singal lost, different situation, that's why there is almost nothing you can do. I did the job but notified everyone that i would be extremely careful and will not do any distant flying.
I didn't had any issues, everything was ok BUT I stayed below 15 meters and the drone was always at a distance of 100 meters away never flew further. Satellites were around 18.
Apologies for the wrong info on my post, people were talking about sudden signal lost and even rth was not working, drones were out of control and showing home point Lebanon (after asking more info) ,the problem was gps jam
We are still in red for gps signal hopefully the situation will get better soon

 

[Meta4]

The situations with drones flying away was due to gps jam and not singal lost, different situation, that's why there is almost nothing you can do.

Can you show the recorded flight data from one of these incidents?
It might help to understand what actually happened.

 

[Mrktn]

Although I know what to do if there’s a chance of controlling the drone in ATTI mode if the worst came to the worst, I flew it over Fig Tree Bay last month. Captured about 15 minutes of footage twice as first flight didn’t save to sd card.

No issues to report, have been told that east facing is bad in particular, towards Israel and Lebanon. But the bird returned home with no issues.

Didn’t come across any other people with drones which I normally do in previous years.

Not sure I’d fly near Limassol, I understand although with no proof, that it’s heavily gps spoofed.

Probably helped that I only flew 25/30 metres high apart from a couple of minutes at 65 metres for a 360 degrees around Fig Tree island.

 

[AydinT]

Hello,

In the same place where I had GPS problems with the Mavic 3, there is no GPS problem with the Mini 3 and Mini 4. The GPS module of the Mavic 3 series is very inadequate compared to the Mini models, or there is a problem with my GPS module.

 

[Meta4]

In the same place where I had GPS problems with the Mavic 3, there is no GPS problem with the Mini 3 and Mini 4.

At the same time as well as the same place ... or just at the same place?

 

[AydinT]

in the same place at the same time.

 

[AydinT]

Hello, I am experiencing GPS loss with my Mavic 3 device. Mini 3 Pro and Mini 4 Pro can fly smoothly in the same place at the same time.

Is only the mavic 3 affected by parasites? When I looked at the map, there was no parasite in the area.

 

[Eko]

There is a lot of interference to GPS in your area:

Hello Meta4,

Thank you for sharing the GPSJAM.ORG website info, it is really very informative with full coverage of the world. However it only reports for the dates yesterday or earlier, but not for today, tomorrow and forward. Right? So, once we start a flight we won't be able to get this information; but it will only give us the reasonable clue for the GPS related problem we experienced yesterday. Am I correct?

I have been advised by a drone pilot that, the Kp Index value reported in the popoular weather applications will be (might be) a valuable indicator to decide starting a flight or not, to avoid facing GPS interference. A value of 5 or more would be a no-fly decision. Is this true?

People who commented above did not mention anything about the Kp index relation to GPS jam, so I wanted to ask.

Thanks.