Flying drone near cell tower

Lroar · Feb 23, 2019

I had a phsntom 1 which I used to fly in a park near to which was a cell tower.
I used to fly without incident until one day for no apparent reason, the drone started to behave erratically. I couldn't control it, then it crashed into the ground. Another time I tried flying a phantom 2 at the same location and it just flew away.

Loman34 · Feb 23, 2019

PhantomWetSuits · Feb 23, 2019

Andy9 said:
Generally I avoid cell towers for 2 reasons. They are not very interesting to film them and they can make some troubles.
Flying in ATTI is really no problem, particular if there is no wind. If there is and you fly near any structure, the crash is only a few seconds away. Usually it surprise you and take just enough time till you realize that the drone is drifting that there is too late.
It happened to me two weeks ago, when I was in ATTI testing the speed and the direction of the wind, which was pretty strong but not so that Phantom can't handle it easily. I had the Phantom 10 m above my head when I looked at the display for only two seconds and just at that moment the wind changed the direction and when I realize that the drone was going to hit the church only 20m away it was too late already to do anything. Such things happened very quickly so the best way to handle ATTI is having enough altitude. to fly over near objects.
I felt very stupid and angry after the crash, not because of the damage but because of my self-confidence in drone flying.

Not a fan of putting the drone into Atti mode to test for wind, this confirms it for me, thank you.

sar104 · Feb 23, 2019

PhantomWetSuits said:
Not a fan of putting the drone into Atti mode to test for wind, this confirms it for me, thank you.

Because one person did that at such a low altitude that it crashed into a structure, and you cannot figure out any way to prevent that from happening?

PhantomWetSuits · Feb 23, 2019

Thats not 1 person that is a seasoned flyer, one that i have come to respect on the forum and I have also used atti mode a few times and there have been some close calls. So now I am going change my ways , as most of the time I do not have a lot of clearance and recently had a close call at the lake where the wind took my drone so fast I almost did not get it back.

wa5tef · Feb 23, 2019

I have an internet business I run from my hamshack and use my 100 foot ham tower for service. I have three sector antennas on 2.4 ghz and one dish on 5.8 ghz and frequently fly up to inspect these and my ham antennas. I fly right up in front of each antenna and have had no problems at all. With DJI's spread spectrum should allow the drones to avoid being interfered with. I realize cell towers transmit different frequencies than the ones we use but the interference should be even less just due to that.

Thanks,
Jim
WA5TEF

PhantomWetSuits · Feb 23, 2019

wa5tef said:
I have an internet business I run from my hamshack and use my 100 foot ham tower for service. I have three sector antennas on 2.4 ghz and one dish on 5.8 ghz and frequently fly up to inspect these and my ham antennas. I fly right up in front of each antenna and have had no problems at all. With DJI's spread spectrum should allow the drones to avoid being interfered with. I realize cell towers transmit different frequencies than the ones we use but the interference should be even less just due to that.

Thanks,
Jim
WA5TEF

That is good to know, but what about a Cable Satelite Dish, I recently flew close to one , about 10 ft away and it knocked out my GPS to atti mode. Should that have happend or should i be on 2.4 to get past it. Any ideas. ?

edroberts1943 · Feb 23, 2019

Well, my first question is why do you want to fly there in the first place? Secondly, regardless of the frequency of the cell tower or its supporting facilities, if any of its broadcasting frequencies are strong enough, your drone might be saturated which could cause unpredictable behavior.

JSKCKNIT · Feb 23, 2019

Skip to 5:30

sar104 · Feb 23, 2019

JSKCKNIT said:
Skip to 5:30

Nice video. That's a good illustration of how hundreds of kW of RF, at any frequency, can mess with these systems. A very different situation than cell towers though.

jcw7268 · Feb 23, 2019

Telecom Tower Inspection using DJI Phantom 4 Pro: Step-by-step guide

Templin · Feb 25, 2019

I wouldn't get within 25' of the top of the tower. A colleague and I had a P4Pro and an Inspire 2 go haywire when we were surveying a tower when we got closer than 25'.

Quest-So · Feb 26, 2019

JSKCKNIT said:
(...)
Not my video.

From 0:49 the guy was right in the middle of the microwave beam. See the white dish on the tower, pointing right towards the drone. Consequences... as expected.

Cat Eyes · Mar 23, 2019

I'm trying to drum up business with cell and power towers.

Cat Eyes · Mar 31, 2019

Trackerputnam said:
I love the John Wayne quote! And it speaks to the question of the op. Every time we take off there is a certain amount of courage we need to do so. Over time, knowledge and experience bolster that courage. The video of the drone crash really doesn’t tell us much without the flight data. One thing I notice first is that the pilot had the drone too close because of guy wires. You won’t see them till it’s to late.

Can you remember the first time you flew over water? Were your hands shaking? Weren’t awful happy when the drone was back over land? Flying around a cell tower is like flying over water. You should start with a small stream first before flying along crashing wave of the ocean.

On a cell tower, I approach slowly and if I get any flutter in the transmission I back off. If not you can circle it or waterever you want. But staying higher around it to avoid the guy wires would be good. Also your transmission can simply be blocked by the tower alone even if there is no transmitting go on.

If you're flying around a cell tower that's got guy wires, you're not suppose to be within 2000 ft of it anyway. I know, I know, there's always reasons or excuses to do so anyway.

dirkclod · Mar 31, 2019

First I have heard of that .

sar104 · Mar 31, 2019

Cat Eyes said:
If you're flying around a cell tower that's got guy wires, you're not suppose to be within 2000 ft of it anyway. I know, I know, there's always reasons or excuses to do so anyway.

That doesn't apply to sUAS operations though - just manned aircraft.

Cat Eyes · Mar 31, 2019

sar104 said:
That doesn't apply to sUAS operations though - just manned aircraft.

Well that makes a big difference. I'll have to go back and see where I learned that from and how I misinterpreted that. I know 2000 ft is a long ways away if you're flying a drone.

Cat Eyes · Mar 31, 2019

Quest-So said:
From 0:49 the guy was right in the middle of the microwave beam. See the white dish on the tower, pointing right towards the drone. Consequences... as expected.

I am not knowledgeable about microwaves and how they interfere with operating a drone but this drone looks like it casually crashed into the trees. If anything, I would have expected it to drop like a rock, not oops, trees! look out.