For US FAA registration, which serial numbers are in use?

[Kovacs]

Hi all, been a long time out of the loop.

My company's P4P2.0 FAA registration is nearly due for renewal, and in the past 2 years the RF ID rules of course have come into play. I've been... let's just say reluctant... to update the firmware until now, but I had no problems. I updated the Go4 app to the latest version, and then the firmware on the drone, remote controller, and all batteries. Took the unit outside, got a GPS lock and fired up the motors, confirmed with a wifi scan that the Remote ID was transmitting as expected. Great.

Now, as I was doing all this, I jotted down the flight controller SN, the remote controller SN, and the RF ID number (which is just 1581F + 14-digit flight control SN + 0). Then I actually looked at the drone itself and the serial number sticker in the battery compartment. The serial number on the sticker, although also 14-digits, is different from the flight controller SN, which I didn't anticipate. The drone has never been in for service, so it's the original board from the factory, completely undisturbed by me. Is the Flight Controller SN updated during the firmware update process, by chance?

When we first registered the drone with the FAA about 6 years ago, we used the battery compartment sticker as the serial number of the drone. Is this correct? Is it expected that the drone serial number would not be immediately recognizable as an embedded part of the RF ID number, or will this cause confusion with the FAA/anyone monitoring my upcoming part 107 flights, etc.?

I've seen several people mention that updating an existing FAA registration to include the Remote ID number just wasn't working, so they deleted the existing and starting over with no issues. I now wonder if a mismatch between a serial number and Remote ID number might have been their issue?

Also, now that the firmware updating is all completed, in the About section within the Go4 app, the Flight Controller serial number entry is now stating n/a. I've already written it down and could extract it from the RF ID number if needed, but I'm just confused what would cause this entry to no longer be populated?

Thanks for any help!
-Jason

 

[Kovacs]

Hi all, been a long time out of the loop.

My company's P4P2.0 FAA registration is nearly due for renewal, and in the past 2 years the RF ID rules of course have come into play. I've been... let's just say reluctant... to update the firmware until now, but I had no problems. I updated the Go4 app to the latest version, and then the firmware on the drone, remote controller, and all batteries. Took the unit outside, got a GPS lock and fired up the motors, confirmed with a wifi scan that the Remote ID was transmitting as expected. Great.

Now, as I was doing all this, I jotted down the flight controller SN, the remote controller SN, and the RF ID number (which is just 1581F + 14-digit flight control SN + 0). Then I actually looked at the drone itself and the serial number sticker in the battery compartment. The serial number on the sticker, although also 14-digits, is different from the flight controller SN, which I didn't anticipate. The drone has never been in for service, so it's the original board from the factory, completely undisturbed by me. Is the Flight Controller SN updated during the firmware update process, by chance?

When we first registered the drone with the FAA about 6 years ago, we used the battery compartment sticker as the serial number of the drone. Is this correct? Is it expected that the drone serial number would not be immediately recognizable as an embedded part of the RF ID number, or will this cause confusion with the FAA/anyone monitoring my upcoming part 107 flights, etc.?

I've seen several people mention that updating an existing FAA registration to include the Remote ID number just wasn't working, so they deleted the existing and starting over with no issues. I now wonder if a mismatch between a serial number and Remote ID number might have been their issue?

Also, now that the firmware updating is all completed, in the About section within the Go4 app, the Flight Controller serial number entry is now stating n/a. I've already written it down and could extract it from the RF ID number if needed, but I'm just confused what would cause this entry to no longer be populated?

Thanks for any help!
-Jason

Just a quick update: I kind of answered my own question when I logged into Drone Zone to renew/update the P4P's FAA registration. Turns out, all the FAA wanted to know was the Remote ID number. The update, which eliminated that initially used serial number on the battery compartment sticker completely from the registration, seemed to work fine, and I was able to then renew the registration for the next 3 years per normal.