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I spent an hour flying my phantom 3 standard on Tuesday filming a cross country event and at the very end ( I had 15% battery) so i decided to come in and land but when it was 5 meters above me the power cut out and it fell to earth. Unfortunately during the crash the gimbal support snapped (easy to replace) and the multithread gray wire came loose (Just clips back in) the other gray stayed attached but the black wire snapped.

from what I can understand the black wire is not that important as I started up my drone indoors to check the gimbal still worked. It all worked including the live feed. From what I can find the single gray wire is the live feed transmission but that leaves the black wire?? I believe it is a GND (Ground) wire for the live view as all power is supplied by the thick set of wires.

I have asked about repair from DJI but customer support was hopeless

so my question is, do I do a self repair and not reconnect the black wire? it all still functions fine. what am I risking by leaving it loose? alternatively does anyone know where I can get an individual PCI U.FL connector that I can put back on thre black wire myself?

Thanks in advance, Edward
 
I've never seen anyone successfully repair the coaxial antenna cables. You can buy a replacement antenna here on Amazon or here on eBay.
 
They are both for Wi-Fi. I don't know if it's possible to fly with just one antenna. If it is, the signal probably won't be too good once you yaw away from the side that contains the working antenna.
 
They are both for Wi-Fi. I don't know if it's possible to fly with just one antenna. If it is, the signal probably won't be too good once you yaw away from the side that contains the working antenna.

Okay thanks msinger. do you suggest self repair instead of dji?
 
It's up to you. Here's what's involved if you want to do the repair yourself:

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Yawing will have no impact on the signal link quality, it will be equally degraded regardless of orientation. Two antennas are required as the wifi implementation is 80211n MIMO, it relies on spatial diversity and encoding algorithms to provide significantly improved data throughout.
 
Yawing will have no impact on the signal link quality, it will be equally degraded regardless of orientation. Two antennas are required as the wifi implementation is 80211n MIMO, it relies on spatial diversity and encoding algorithms to provide significantly improved data throughout.

okay so does that mean I will just have a reduced range but other than that nothing dramatic? (obviously all video is recorded to the SD card so i am only loosing video streaming range?
 
Two antennas are required as the wifi implementation is 80211n MIMO, it relies on spatial diversity and encoding algorithms to provide significantly improved data throughout.
So, what happens when you only fly with one antenna?
 
So, what happens when you only fly with one antenna?

like I said, I fired it up to check and i am still geting crystal clear video stream (of course i was only 3 meters away from my phantom so surely it is just a reduced video range? i am trying to judge whether I can get away with not sending it back to ji and being charged a fair few bucks. customer support was useless and as far as i can see the error was theirs as it shut down at 15% battery but the person I was talking to will not confirm that it was a system error.
 
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@msinger and @With The Birds i have been lookin on another forum and it seems that only one antenna is actually required, it is just so that it has two choices and can chose the stronger signal?

'The two WiFi patch antennas are mounted inside the P3S on each side. The two control Rx diversity antennas are inside left back and right front landing gear legs. There are two of each for selecting the best signal. This is called antenna Rx and Tx diversity.'

- Official Phantom 3 STANDARD ***Owners Thread*** - Page 93 - RC Groups
 
I like this kind if stuff! Please go fly at the same location, let us know if you any range issues, etc.
 
@msinger and @With The Birds i have been lookin on another forum and it seems that only one antenna is actually required, it is just so that it has two choices and can chose the stronger signal?
That's what I was thinking. @With The Birds seems to know more about it than me though. Perhaps he'll chime in and give us some more details.

FWIW, the Wi-Fi signal on the P3S isn't the best with two working antennas. I don't know why anyone would want to use just one.
 
That's what I was thinking. @With The Birds seems to know more about it than me though. Perhaps he'll chime in and give us some more details.

FWIW, the Wi-Fi signal on the P3S isn't the best with two working antennas. I don't know why anyone would want to use just one.

I never have had any problems with my range, I frequently fly it up to 1000m away with no issue. The trick to that is to use litchi as for some reason you get much better range on it. (you get 5 bars instead of 3?) so i prefer to use that for long range stuff and you get extra features. with the dji go I only ever got 550m.

I will try flying again once my new gimbal bracket has arrived
 
That's what I was thinking. @With The Birds seems to know more about it than me though. Perhaps he'll chime in and give us some more details.

FWIW, the Wi-Fi signal on the P3S isn't the best with two working antennas. I don't know why anyone would want to use just one.
Older RF technologies predating wifi (including current wifi standards- 802.11 a/g from memory) may employ multiple antennas at the Tx and or Rx end of the link and select the one with the best signal quality. They only use one antenna at each end at any particular time. 802.11n employs multiple antennas by feeding separately preencoded data streams (additional redundant data) which when recombined at the receiver provide for increased effective link range and data quality/throughout
 
Well then, I'd better hope that the working one provided the better range! I will keep you updated
 
Well then, I'd better hope that the working one provided the better range! I will keep you updated
Do you think DJI would run dual antennas if one worked just as good? Please report back on effective range, it should be less than half of what you previously obtained, particularly in areas where other Wifi networks are operating.
 
MIMO improves improves reception through signal processing of two or more antennas simultaneously. The math is too complicated to describe here, but it isn't a simple summing of the signal strengths. Far from it. MIMO processing accounts for phase and amplitude variations across two entirely different signal propagation paths, which can mitigate all kinds of propagation anomalies on either path. Even though the antennas are only inches apart at each end of the link, that is enough distance to provide two completely independent propagation paths, so fades and distortions on one path can be mitigated by the other path. MIMO calculations are done continuously to account for propagation conditions changing many thousands of times per second.

With The Birds is right that just one antenna can work, but it will not work nearly as well with only one antenna, because the MIMO benefits disappear if there is only one antenna. You should definitely expect degraded performance with only one antenna working in the bird.
 
There is another problem that people seem to be missing: those antennas are connected to RF power amplifiers. Many RF power amplifiers simply fry if they don't have an antenna attached to dissipate all the energy. It's a well understood rule of any RF transmission: never operate any RF amplifier without an antenna. Forums are full of reports of people burning their FPV transmitters and RC transmitters forgetting to connect the antenna while testing

Modern RF amplifiers are better protected than in the past, but flying with one one antenna is a bad, bad idea. You might end up burning one of the 2 amplifiers, and even after you replace the antenna, you will be left with a sub-par range. As With The Birds says, there's a reason why there are 2 antennas (depending on the P3S orientation, one might be blocked by the battery/motors) and DJI surely would not have used two of they thought they could get away with one. Burning the RF amplifier would require a gimbal board replacement, much more expensive than the antenna (part 97)

If it were me, I would immediately stop powering up my P3S, and will wait until I can replace the antenna
 

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