Airborne repeater for Lightbridge ??

[Jiggly-Wiggly]

Has anyone ever seen or built a repeater system for the P3 Pro?

I'm not talking about signal booster amps (I already have the FPVLR kit) --- I'm talking about a repeater that could be mounted on a secondary Phantom and would hover at like 200 or 300 ft. while your main bird would fly out and then be able to descend into a canyon or behind a large patch of woods, and still give you good FPV quality and control of your bird?

I can't be the only person who needs something like this! I'm surprised DJI doesnt market an airborne repeater system --- could be a stripped down P3A with basic camera to allow you to navigate to a good hover spot and then you switch on the repeater to allow your P3 or P4 to fly out to an area that is BLOS because of trees or hills in the way.

 

[sonof40]

I posted the same question about 6 months ago. I would think there might be a commercial use for it as well, which could justify the cost.
It would have to repeat multiple signals.

 

[Jiggly-Wiggly]

I posted the same question about 6 months ago. I would think there might be a commercial use for it as well, which could justify the cost. It would have to repeat multiple signals.

I saw a video on YouTube about a year ago where some guy made this kind of airborne repeater system for his P2 Vision+ --- he was flying in the West Virginia mountains and had frequent signal dropouts so he developed this system and it worked superbly !! He could stand on a mountain top and fly his P2V+ out 2 miles and then drop down into a steep canyon and still get rock solid signals. It does get a little tricky since you need someone to operate the repeater drone --- watching for battery strength and so on.

Gotta be a lot of people who need a system like this --- commercial or private hobby use. DJI is missing out on a great revenue stream here.

 

[aburkefl]

I saw a video on YouTube about a year ago where some guy made this kind of airborne repeater system for his P2 Vision+ --- he was flying in the West Virginia mountains and had frequent signal dropouts so he developed this system and it worked superbly !! He could stand on a mountain top and fly his P2V+ out 2 miles and then drop down into a steep canyon and still get rock solid signals. It does get a little tricky since you need someone to operate the repeater drone --- watching for battery strength and so on.

Gotta be a lot of people who need a system like this --- commercial or private hobby use. DJI is missing out on a great revenue stream here.

Check out the Litchi app. With its waypoint capability, once you've loaded the mission, your phantom flies the route even if connection is lost between your controller and the phantom. I've flown well behind buildings and trees. Keep in mind, if something does go really wrong and you don't have control...

YouTube is full of stories/videos about people flying a Litchi waypoint mission without control (after takeoff and initialization of the mission). I've seen more than one demo where the operator turned off the R/C and watched the phantom complete the mission.

Art - N4PJ
Leesburg, FL

 

[Jiggly-Wiggly]

Check out the Litchi app. With its waypoint capability, once you've loaded the mission, your phantom flies the route even if connection is lost between your controller and the phantom. I've flown well behind buildings and trees. Keep in mind, if something does go really wrong and you don't have control...

Litchis is a really cool app. However, it's an autonomous mission and what I'm talking about is manual flight control when the LOS is blocked by trees or a hill or buildings. I can see many people running into this problem, so it appears DJI or some other company has to come up with a viable solution. Until drones can be controlled with non-LOS methods such as "control over cell towers" --- then an airborne repeater system is what is needed, even though it's more costly. The burgeoning commercial drone delivery industry won't be able to function until this problem is solved.

 

[BigAl07]

Check out the Litchi app. With its waypoint capability, once you've loaded the mission, your phantom flies the route even if connection is lost between your controller and the phantom. I've flown well behind buildings and trees. Keep in mind, if something does go really wrong and you don't have control...

YouTube is full of stories/videos about people flying a Litchi waypoint mission without control (after takeoff and initialization of the mission). I've seen more than one demo where the operator turned off the R/C and watched the phantom complete the mission.

Art - N4PJ
Leesburg, FL

That won't help in this situation at all. What if you're wanting to "Search" down in the valley? Once you go so far "over the edge" you have a problem with Terra Firma blocking the signal. I can see where a small Repeater would be a great investment. We could use it for Search & Rescue a lot.

 

[Jiggly-Wiggly]

That won't help in this situation at all. What if you're wanting to "Search" down in the valley? Once you go so far "over the edge" you have a problem with Terra Firma blocking the signal. I can see where a small Repeater would be a great investment. We could use it for Search & Rescue a lot.

Yep, Litchi is great but autonomous missions have their limitations.

There is simply TOO MUCH DEMAND for an airborne repeater system. Commercial applications require it, and many hobbyists would love it, too.