Flying around radio station antennas?

[butters149]

Hi,

Just wondering how the phantom does if I fly around radio station antennas that are located in the mountains? thanks.

 

[Meta4]

Too many variables to give a definite answer. Probably OK but maybe not.

 

[noiseboy72]

Very powerful radio transmitters will swamp your receiver, causing a loss of selectivity. What this means is that the receiver will receive pretty much any frequency and will try to decode the signal.

Worst case is that you get total loss of control, including loss of GPS. There is a video of exactly this where a guy flies up to the Hollywood sign - and the transmitter site next to it, and loses control. Fortunately the quad came home, but this is not always the case...

 

[ToThePoint]

Totally irresponsible as you don't know what frequencies the antennae transmit upon and what harmonics ( lowpass, highpass ) filters used.
Your transmitting power can be easily swiped away resulting in huge damage from that lawnmower.

 

[arizeda]

Is there any way to scan an area for frequencies before flying there?

I had a similar instance, lost GPS and inputs, it tried to fly home and didn't have correct home location (probably related), and then crashed 100m or so away luckily.

 

[Forester]

WARNING! I did this last month. Trying to get sample for future biz. Everything was going great. Decided a little bit more and closer in. Just about to bring it down and away it went. I don't remember looking at screen to ck for GPS. Naturally I panicked and tried RTH. It flew a large circle kind of on its own. Thought I was going to get it back and away it went again at high speed. Flew by me at high speed and right inside of tower fence and crashed into tower. I couldn't believe how good it was a minute earlier and now I not only crashed my ship but it was behind a locked gate. Called to tower company on sign. I've done some contacting with them before from my job and they gave me combo to get in and rescue my ship. So glad to get it back but gimble was messed up. Called about repair and decided to order new one and keep old one for trial flights without having camera. Kind of like the old canary in the mine trick. Talked to tower technicians and showed video,the camera was recording all the time. It was a interesting video. I ruled out flying around towers. I noticed the new inspire can fly inside. Does this mean no GPS, making it more likely to be able to fly towers?
Good luck

 

[justin00]

Alot of antennas on building are at 5.8ghz... so beware of that.. not just radio towers you need to be careful of!!
Dunno how it is where you folks live, but here in Australia, alot of tallish (3 story+ building) will have heaps of directional antenna's jammed up on the roof.
Some are mini cell phone towers, some are for 2.4ghz, some 5.8ghz, and a range of 100 other technologies used to TX/RX data.

 

[Meta4]

I noticed the new inspire can fly inside. Does this mean no GPS, making it more likely to be able to fly towers?

No .. it has an additional sensor that can visually lock on to patterns on the floor - but only a couple of metres down.
Good in a gym or warehouse but not useful on a tower.

 

[ToThePoint]

Is there any way to scan an area for frequencies before flying there?

I had a similar instance, lost GPS and inputs, it tried to fly home and didn't have correct home location (probably related), and then crashed 100m or so away luckily.

Yes there is a way.
A spectrum analyzer, seen a video on you-tube were someone with a quad had issue's and used that to scan the area.
They use to cost a lot but i don't know nowadays. Technology became smaller and cheaper over 2 decades.
It works similar to what a wifi analyzer does on a tablet.
Let us know when you figure something out.
Happy hunting.

 

[noiseboy72]

Is there any way to scan an area for frequencies before flying there?

I had a similar instance, lost GPS and inputs, it tried to fly home and didn't have correct home location (probably related), and then crashed 100m or so away luckily.

Yes there is a way.
A spectrum analyzer, seen a video on you-tube were someone with a quad had issue's and used that to scan the area.
They use to cost a lot but i don't know nowadays. Technology became smaller and cheaper over 2 decades.
It works similar to what a wifi analyzer does on a tablet.
Let us know when you figure something out.
Happy hunting.

But this won't help if the transmitter is so powerful that it swamps the receiver on the quad. ANY frequency with enough power will black out the reception on the receiver, so get too close to a big TV mast or high power directional disk and you are in trouble.

 

[ToThePoint]

Is there any way to scan an area for frequencies before flying there?

I had a similar instance, lost GPS and inputs, it tried to fly home and didn't have correct home location (probably related), and then crashed 100m or so away luckily.

Yes there is a way.
A spectrum analyzer, seen a video on you-tube were someone with a quad had issue's and used that to scan the area.
They use to cost a lot but i don't know nowadays. Technology became smaller and cheaper over 2 decades.
It works similar to what a wifi analyzer does on a tablet.
Let us know when you figure something out.
Happy hunting.

But this won't help if the transmitter is so powerful that it swamps the receiver on the quad. ANY frequency with enough power will black out the reception on the receiver, so get too close to a big TV mast or high power directional disk and you are in trouble.

If the transmitted power is enough it will cause they are electro magnetic fields.
But that wasn't the question, it was " Is there any way to scan an area for frequencies before flying there? " So a spectrum analyzer answers the question.
They cost roughly $1000 a GHZ.

 

[davisual]

I had a near disastrous outcome when last weekend I was shooting a new building downtown. Nashville. Had good sat lock, but when I took it up about 30 feet, I hit a signal from a directional radio station antenna across the street. Went to zero satellites and bird started heading off. Barely got it back down below building level to do a hand catch.