GPS Problem??? :(

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GPS Problem? Went outside to try to fly around my house, but I could not get the bird to flash green. My iPhone had the GPS signal either greyed out or it went up to a max of six and then went back to grey. Does it just show grey when you have less than six or is something wrong with my new bird? We have lots of big trees all around the property, but my portable gps in my car can usually pick up signals. When I went to the ground station part of the app it was only showing 3 signals and briefly 4 signals. I guess I will never be able to fly at my house?
 
I'm far from an expert here but usually when I have trouble acquiring sats I move the phantom around to different take off points. I have gone from 5 to 7 sats just moving 10 to 15 feet away. This doesn't work every where but in most places I have had success. Also I try to find the most open area where ever I am trying to fly from.
 
Your tall trees and your house itself will block satellites. Many of the satellites can be low towards the horizon. You need wide open spaces, much safer too if you are new to this.

Sent from Samsung S4 via Tapatalk
 
At different times of day there are a different amount of satellites available, depending on atmospheric conditions so at another time you could get gps lock easily. If your house is not very open then it will always be difficult to get gps lock as you do need to see a bit of the horizon to get multiple sats.
Also remember if you do launch without 6+ sats this means you have no home lock so you would need to do this manually and it will be in atti mode which means the quad will drift in the wind but hold its height position, be very careful in this mode if objects are nearby. You will find as soon as you get some height more sats come into view.
After reading your post again i see you mention tall trees all around the property, this may never be a good area to fly.
 
So if I understand correctly I could go straight up in ATTI mode and then get a GPS lock and reset the home position and then go into GPS mode and fly from there?
 
Yes

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kirbinster said:
So if I understand correctly I could go straight up in ATTI mode and then get a GPS lock and reset the home position and then go into GPS mode and fly from there?

Not really good practice but you can do it, always try and get a home lock before launch.
Remember if you go straight up in atti and you have less than 6 satellites, then lose connection before you get gps lock the quad will drift away with the wind, you have no control and it cannot return home because it don't know where its at. :eek:
 
kirbinster said:
So if I understand correctly I could go straight up in ATTI mode and then get a GPS lock and reset the home position and then go into GPS mode and fly from there?

Not quite...
You will be able to fly controllably at the high altitude, but once you start descending it will lose the signals. If you only descend next to your home point, it may be OK as long as there is no wind.
I launched it next to a river with tress behind me, and while it was able to fly OK high up, landing became a challenge as I was trying to avoid the trees or the river...
Now, I never fly it without 6+ sats. This is why I am searching for a good GPS mod...
 
Has anyone mentioned the foil shielding mod?
I used to get 4/5 in my backyard. Picks up 6/7 now.
And yes, its a good idea to get mid air home point locks.
When I'm impatient or need to get airborne quick, I fly ATTI up and check the highest obstacle height and reset my home point in mid air. The radar should give you a new 0.0 distance when a new Home point is established. Setting home point in mid air also gives you the extra 20m/60ft if RTH is triggered.

Keep an eye on the sats when landing as the lower it goes, the lower the sat count. Maybe catch it above your head to prevent sat drops.
 
Just got mine back from repair. I immediately took it into my back yard, very small with heavy trees. I just wanted to make sure it was working. Sat predictor showed I should have about 8 gps, and surprisingly I got 7 even with the trees. A couple hours later I took it to a larger area, fewer trees and yet it was bouncing between 4 to 6. Sat predictor showed I'd get around 6 gps for that time frame. Even in the air above the tree line it was still losing gps lock. So I nervously brought her in, wasn't going to risk losing it so soon after getting it repaired. Sat predictor seems to be pretty accurate from my testing. http://satpredictor.navcomtech.com

Considering doing the foil mod.
 
I have owned all the dii products including the first phantom 2nd Fantom,FC40,Vision and now the Vision+.I returned my first vision plus because i could only get 4 satellites And after 5 minutes later about 7 max,I just tried my new Vision+ side by side with my vision and i must say the Vision+ has problems with the GPS. I contacted DJI to let them know there is a problem,I also did the Foil update and it really didn't make a difference.There is a big problem sorry to say.
 
kirbinster said:
GPS Problem? Went outside to try to fly around my house, but I could not get the bird to flash green. My iPhone had the GPS signal either greyed out or it went up to a max of six and then went back to grey. Does it just show grey when you have less than six or is something wrong with my new bird? We have lots of big trees all around the property, but my portable gps in my car can usually pick up signals. When I went to the ground station part of the app it was only showing 3 signals and briefly 4 signals. I guess I will never be able to fly at my house?

I'm uploading a video now taken just for such a topic. I will link to it as soon as it's done processing. It is completely un-edited and about 5 minutes long. The take-off consists of me elevating and rotating at the same time to show the density of the trees. Meanwhile, I've included a picture of where I flew from, looking straight down. I have flown from this property about 3 times, each time I was able to get at least 6 sats. I will not launch without at least 6 and usually wait a couple minutes for 7 or more. I do remember that once I got above the trees I had 8 satellites locked.
 

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PhilAnderson said:
kirbinster said:
GPS Problem? Went outside to try to fly around my house, but I could not get the bird to flash green. My iPhone had the GPS signal either greyed out or it went up to a max of six and then went back to grey. Does it just show grey when you have less than six or is something wrong with my new bird? We have lots of big trees all around the property, but my portable gps in my car can usually pick up signals. When I went to the ground station part of the app it was only showing 3 signals and briefly 4 signals. I guess I will never be able to fly at my house?

I'm uploading a video now taken just for such a topic. I will link to it as soon as it's done processing. It is completely un-edited and about 5 minutes long. The take-off consists of me elevating and rotating at the same time to show the density of the trees. Meanwhile, I've included a picture of where I flew from, looking straight down. I have flown from this property about 3 times, each time I was able to get at least 6 sats. I will not launch without at least 6 and usually wait a couple minutes for 7 or more. I do remember that once I got above the trees I had 8 satellites locked.
I have the same issue not enough satellites being acquired with the vision plus,I hope there working on an update
 
PhilAnderson said:
kirbinster said:
GPS Problem? Went outside to try to fly around my house, but I could not get the bird to flash green. My iPhone had the GPS signal either greyed out or it went up to a max of six and then went back to grey. Does it just show grey when you have less than six or is something wrong with my new bird? We have lots of big trees all around the property, but my portable gps in my car can usually pick up signals. When I went to the ground station part of the app it was only showing 3 signals and briefly 4 signals. I guess I will never be able to fly at my house?

I'm uploading a video now taken just for such a topic. I will link to it as soon as it's done processing. It is completely un-edited and about 5 minutes long. The take-off consists of me elevating and rotating at the same time to show the density of the trees. Meanwhile, I've included a picture of where I flew from, looking straight down. I have flown from this property about 3 times, each time I was able to get at least 6 sats. I will not launch without at least 6 and usually wait a couple minutes for 7 or more. I do remember that once I got above the trees I had 8 satellites locked.

Here is the video. This was shot back in May when I was a new pilot and had not turned off FPV view in the app, so there is a little jerkiness. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ3ksZNIQME[/youtube]
 
Last night I used the 3m adhesive tape and removed the aluminum foil duct tape, this morning I did a side by side test and my phantom vision still had more received satellites than my vision plus.my vision had 9 satellites and my vision plus had a fluctuations between 7 and 8.there is a problem for sure hope its an update fix
 
I have the same issue. I have 3 phantoms 1 V and 2 V+. One of the V+ takes forever (5-10 minutes) to pick up 6 satellites where my other units pick them up faster and more of them. I've tried multiple version of the Phantom Assistant SW and firmware. Anyone have suggestions?

Thanks
 

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