Flying Above the Arctic Circle - Compass Issues

[Hectop]

I'm planning some treks in Iceland/Greenland in June/July and am hoping to bring along the P3A. Magnetic north and true north will be a long way off, particularly from where I'm traveling in Greenland. Does anyone have experience flying this far north? Do I need to be concerned about compass calibration issues on the bird?


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I have a Phantom 4 Pro and I took it last August on the Thelon River in the Barren Grounds of the Northwest Territories. I was at about 62 - 63 degrees north for the 2 weeks and about 103 degrees west. I fly the Phantom several times and it always behaved the same way. It would start up fine, it would acquire A LOT of satellite as the terrain has no relief there and it would take off ok. But soon after, maybe a minute or two, it would still show that it was connected to, say, 15 satellite, bu the signal would drop off to almost nothing and the drone was no longer GPS positioned. This gets very scary when you are used to flying without having LOS. Also, winds cause considerable drift and the magnetic compas gets a little squirrely. This was very disappointing as I wanted to fly out several kilometres to look for game, such as caribou and muskox but that was not to be. The low relief theoretically should allow you to fly far out with te signal being blocked by anyway so you can keep your altitude low. Not to many places in the world where you can do that.I would love to have a solution to this. How do you increase the gain of the on-board GPS antennae, through software or hardware??

 

[Sagebrush]

I have a Phantom 4 Pro and I took it last August on the Thelon River in the Barren Grounds of the Northwest Territories. I was at about 62 - 63 degrees north for the 2 weeks and about 103 degrees west. I fly the Phantom several times and it always behaved the same way. It would start up fine, it would acquire A LOT of satellite as the terrain has no relief there and it would take off ok. But soon after, maybe a minute or two, it would still show that it was connected to, say, 15 satellite, bu the signal would drop off to almost nothing and the drone was no longer GPS positioned. This gets very scary when you are used to flying without having LOS. Also, winds cause considerable drift and the magnetic compas gets a little squirrely. This was very disappointing as I wanted to fly out several kilometres to look for game, such as caribou and muskox but that was not to be. The low relief theoretically should allow you to fly far out with te signal being blocked by anyway so you can keep your altitude low. Not to many places in the world where you can do that.I would love to have a solution to this. How do you increase the gain of the on-board GPS antennae, through software or hardware??

Can't help you with that... but I'm surprised to read you had problems with the GPS (and GLONASS) related to latitude.

 

[Hectop]

Can't help you with that... but I'm surprised to read you had problems with the GPS (and GLONASS) related to latitude.

Can't help you with that... but I'm surprised to read you had problems with the GPS (and GLONASS) related to latitude.

 

[Hectop]

Any idea what would cause that behaviour that I experienced?

 

[Sagebrush]

Any idea what would cause that behaviour that I experienced?

I don't.

The only part of the GPS system that should be affected by latitude is WAAS which is an FAA system to increase accuracy that may be degraded by atmospheric conditions. It relies on three geostationary satellites that degrade "way up there" –wherever that is. It gives a WAAS enabled GPS devices 3-meter accuracy instead of the 15-meter accuracy. But... my P3A doesn't have WAAS anyway.

It's a mystery. Was the aurora dancing? Dunno if that would do it.

SB

 

[Hectop]

The aurora was in fact stunning, the best that I have ever seen up there. If you are curious, pictures and video from my trip can be seen here Thelon 2017 The Aurora shots are about 2/3 of the way through.
Are there known issues with the Aurora and GPS reception?

 

[Sagebrush]

The aurora was in fact stunning, the best that I have ever seen up there. If you are curious, pictures and video from my trip can be seen here Thelon 2017 The Aurora shots are about 2/3 of the way through.
Are there known issues with the Aurora and GPS reception?

Heavy solar activity does affect it. But I don't know if the effect is greater at the poles.

SB

 

[ravedog]

The aurora was in fact stunning, the best that I have ever seen up there. If you are curious, pictures and video from my trip can be seen here Thelon 2017 The Aurora shots are about 2/3 of the way through.
Are there known issues with the Aurora and GPS reception?

The KP index during auroras is a lot higher and definitely would impact the compass. With gps I’m not sure.