Deep Sea Landing

[KenRW]

Next week I am going on a charter boat deep sea fishing and will be brining the P4. I have two questions I hope to get some advice on.

Is there any concern that we will not have a cell signal out to sea while flying the P4? I think I can just cache the maps of the area the boat will be the night before. Is there anything else I should know about flying without a cell signal?

Can someone give me instructions on how to change the home point to my current location, and can this be done without a cell signal? I will take off from the boat and have the P4 follow us while the boat is headed out to sea. Obviously if I were need to use RTH my location will be much different than the recorded home point when the P4 took off.

Thanks for any assistance you can offer.

 

[msinger]

Is there anything else I should know about flying without a cell signal?

No.

Can someone give me instructions on how to change the home point to my current location, and can this be done without a cell signal?

You can set the home point to your current location from the top of the "Main Controller Settings" in the DJI GO app. Your mobile device will need to have a GPS receiver in order to use that feature.

 

[CaptainDrone798]

Can someone give me instructions on how to change the home point to my current location, and can this be done without a cell signal? I will take off from the boat and have the P4 follow us while the boat is headed out to sea. Obviously if I were need to use RTH my location will be much different than the recorded home point when the P4 took off.

Thanks for any assistance you can offer.

When on a boat, you rarely ever use the HOME POINT set by the Phantom. Instead you use DYNAMIC HOME POINT. This means that wherever your controller is, that is where the Phantom will fly back to should anything go wrong. In order for DYNAMIC to work you need something attached to the Controller that has a GPS, such as a cell phone or tablet with a GPS chip. Note: iPADs that do not have the cellular chip, do not have a GPS chip. Most Android tablets will have the GPS chip.

 

[Meta4]

Next week I am going on a charter boat deep sea fishing and will be bringing the P4. I have two questions I hope to get some advice on.

Is there any concern that we will not have a cell signal out to sea while flying the P4? I think I can just cache the maps of the area the boat will be the night before. Is there anything else I should know about flying without a cell signal?

You don't need cell service at all to fly your Phantom.
The only use of cell service is for live streaming or downloading maps in the field but you can fly perfectly well without mapping anyway or cache maps at home before you go away..
If you are close to the coast the maps might show something worthwhile but if you are any distance offshore there is nothing in mapping that you could use anyway.be learning something new

Regarding flying from the boat ... before you try that, you should have practiced on land all the techniques you might use.
Out at sea is not the place to be learning something new.
Hand catching is going to be important for bringing the Phantom in and hand launching might be needed if there is a lot of steel or electrical cables close to your potential deck launch point.
Be aware that resetting home point to the controller's current location is not a dynamic home point.
The Phantom just resets home but does not continuously update it to keep track of you while under way.

 

[Meta4]

When on a boat, you rarely ever use the HOME POINT set by the Phantom. Instead you use DYNAMIC HOME POINT. This means that wherever your controller is, that is where the Phantom will fly back to should anything go wrong.

The Phantom 2V+ had a dynamic home point feature but the P3 and P4 do not have dynamic home point.
They just allow resetting (and not continually updating) the homepoint.

 

[KenRW]

Thanks to all. I have a iPad Pro with cellular, so I should be fine with the GPS.