I will always fly with my Cell Phone & Tablet in Airplane Mode

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After having a run in with loss of signal while getting ready to fly, careful testing and analysis proved to me that my problem was the BlueTooth signal from my Cell Phone causing the interference. I have put together a web page showing what I did to prove it to myself.
I always pair up my Cell Phone with my in car system so I can do hands free calls and text messages. Little did I know that my particular phone could be causing problems flying my DJI P3P.
Here is the link to what i discovered, about my particular situation.
Always Airplane Mode
 
download (5).jpg
After having a run in with loss of signal while getting ready to fly, careful testing and analysis proved to me that my problem was the BlueTooth signal from my Cell Phone causing the interference. I have put together a web page showing what I did to prove it to myself.
I always pair up my Cell Phone with my in car system so I can do hands free calls and text messages. Little did I know that my particular phone could be causing problems flying my DJI P3P.
Here is the link to what i discovered, about my particular situation.
Always Airplane Mode
Nice piece of research.
 
After having a run in with loss of signal while getting ready to fly, careful testing and analysis proved to me that my problem was the BlueTooth signal from my Cell Phone causing the interference. I have put together a web page showing what I did to prove it to myself.
I always pair up my Cell Phone with my in car system so I can do hands free calls and text messages. Little did I know that my particular phone could be causing problems flying my DJI P3P.
Here is the link to what i discovered, about my particular situation.
Always Airplane Mode
Thats awesome that you have both the knowledge and equipment to do these tests in a meaningful manner.. Thanks. I have always flown with my iphone 6 plus, always in airplane mode taking no chances.. I suspected that either wifi or bluetooth would interfere somehow with the control or video signal.
 
Hey George, thanks for that valuable information. I can definitely see the destructive interference from the overlapping bluetooth signals with wifi. It seems strange that the Phantom would lose altitude and fall from the sky from a loss of signal from the transmitter. Wouldn't the bird return home? I don't know much about the signals and the transmitter and receiver on birdside but is there any evidence out there that this could be something other than interference? Such as a board failure? or ESC failure? Could the signal inference cause the board to malfunction?

Anyhow, I don't know for sure but don't most flight apps on the tablet or phone require some sort of connection to 4G for data to download the maps?
 
This must be something unique to your setup causing interference. I say this because, while I am flying, I am almost always on the phone!

With my Vision+ the phone is in the holder, Wi-Fi connected to Phantom, Bluetooth in my ear chatting away.

With the P3 my Nexus 7 is in the holder, Bluetooth enabled, Wi-Fi tethered to the phone in my pocket, Bluetooth connected to the phone, chatting away.

Never had a problem in either scenario.


After having a run in with loss of signal while getting ready to fly, careful testing and analysis proved to me that my problem was the BlueTooth signal from my Cell Phone causing the interference. I have put together a web page showing what I did to prove it to myself.
I always pair up my Cell Phone with my in car system so I can do hands free calls and text messages. Little did I know that my particular phone could be causing problems flying my DJI P3P.
Here is the link to what i discovered, about my particular situation.
Always Airplane Mode
 
Also always flying in airplane mode. Only problem most of the time I find out many hours after flying it is still in airplane mode...
 
I switch off wifi and bluetooth (really a mess with P3) but cell doesn't affect in any way P3 system.
 
Hey George, thanks for that valuable information. I can definitely see the destructive interference from the overlapping bluetooth signals with wifi. It seems strange that the Phantom would lose altitude and fall from the sky from a loss of signal from the transmitter. Wouldn't the bird return home? I don't know much about the signals and the transmitter and receiver on birdside but is there any evidence out there that this could be something other than interference? Such as a board failure? or ESC failure? Could the signal inference cause the board to malfunction?

Anyhow, I don't know for sure but don't most flight apps on the tablet or phone require some sort of connection to 4G for data to download the maps?
You are correct, the bird should not ever crash with loss of the control signal from the controller. Depending on your settings, it should either hover in place or simply descend and land.
In my situation, it was still on the ground, and the signal was lost from the bird to the controller, just like I demonstrated in the short videos. There may be something different about my particular phone that is causing the interference. Anyway, just wanted to share my findings, just in case it would be helpful to others.
 
This must be something unique to your setup causing interference. I say this because, while I am flying, I am almost always on the phone!

With my Vision+ the phone is in the holder, Wi-Fi connected to Phantom, Bluetooth in my ear chatting away.

With the P3 my Nexus 7 is in the holder, Bluetooth enabled, Wi-Fi tethered to the phone in my pocket, Bluetooth connected to the phone, chatting away.

Never had a problem in either scenario.
As I mentioned, may be something unique to my particular Cell Phone! I probably need to do the final tests again, now that I know how to setup the scenario, with other kinds of Cell Phones in hand.
 
Also always flying in airplane mode. Only problem most of the time I find out many hours after flying it is still in airplane mode...
I am sure that i will probably do that exact same thing!
Need to have a little red ribbon hanging from my shirt pocket that says "Airplane Mode" as a reminder. Or maybe a post flight check list would be appropriate!
 
Hey George, thanks for that valuable information. I can definitely see the destructive interference from the overlapping bluetooth signals with wifi. It seems strange that the Phantom would lose altitude and fall from the sky from a loss of signal from the transmitter. Wouldn't the bird return home? I don't know much about the signals and the transmitter and receiver on birdside but is there any evidence out there that this could be something other than interference? Such as a board failure? or ESC failure? Could the signal inference cause the board to malfunction?

Anyhow, I don't know for sure but don't most flight apps on the tablet or phone require some sort of connection to 4G for data to download the maps?
I download the flight area Google Earth maps using WiFi on my flight tablet, before I leave the house for the flight. They are kept in the cache and will be there until you overwrite them with other maps.
 
Thanks George. I have experienced on and off RC disconnects with my P4A. I’ve also had mixed results on range.

I finally simply compared the noise levels being reported in the DJI GO 4 app on the IMAGE TRANSMISSION SETTINGS screen when my iPad was in and out of airplane mode. The iPad has no cellular capability and I made sure I had no cell phones nearby. The screens were quite different showing minimal/low noise bars when the iPad was in airplane mode but lots of noise bars popping up when I took it out of airplane.

Have not had a disconnect since I began the practice of putting the iPad in airplane mode.

I attribute the inconsistent results I’ve experienced in the past with the happenstance of what state the iPad was in or whether or not I had a cell phone in my pocket with WiFi/Bluetooth turned on.
 

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