P3S fly away 'exit P-GPS mode' and found it a week later, soaking wet, now WORKS FINE

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So I'd only had my P3s about 48 hours when i decided to take it for a evening flight, little did i know the location i was flying in was about 1km away from a high frequency O2 phone mast...

Was flying for about 3 minuets at about 100 metres up and no more than 120 metres distance when i got the message on the DJI go app 'compass error' 'exit P-GPS mode' i couldn't see my drone and panic set in, it was pretty windy on the day as well so i knew my drone would be drifting with the wind.

After about half an hour of running round the local farm land trying to re-establish a connection with my P3s with no luck i figure its gone with the wind and could be god knows where, so i get back in my car (very Pi**ed off) and head home.

Anyway the following weekend my dad insists on going to look for it so i agree and we go looking round the local area, we end up climbing the fence to get into where the mast i mentioned earlier is situated, the mast is around 100m high and has several support cables coming right from the top to floor, we are both scouting round looking for it and all of sudden my dad goes "you've got to be f*ckin kidding me' and pulls my drone from the long grass surrounding the mast, I COULDN'T BELIVE IT!!!

After a closer inspection of the drone i realise its soaking wet, the camera had massive amounts of condensation under the lens, it had been raining relentlessly the whole week so i didn't hold out much hope for it working again, any way i got it home and made a hot box for it with a hairdryer to dry and dry it out, it then got sunk into 10kg of uncooked rice for 48hrs along with the battery.

So after all that i charged the battery, turned it on, connection successful via the DJI go app, spin the motors up, all seems to be OK, time for a test flight...

ALL GOOD, my drone works after being soaked wet for a week straight!!!
 
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Reactions: kinsey
Nice save.. I think I would replace the battery though.
Battery has been through around 6 full charges since, seems to be holding charge fine... Will definitly be looking at getting another though
 
The quad was supposed to be initiating RTH right? When you lost gps signal/error and stuff? I'm confused.


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no gps=no return home
 
The quad was supposed to be initiating RTH right? When you lost gps signal/error and stuff? I'm confused.


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Yeah that should happen if GPS is working but i think the interferance from the phone mast scrambled it
 
Glad you found it, its not a nice felling when you think you've lost it :(

Im not convinced it was the mast though, Ive orbited a few metres from a large water tower for 20 mins on a hill covered in phone cell antennas, never had any issues.
 
Yea I live in a densely populated area and unfortunately have to contend with towers and power lines. I've cautiously flown expecting that to happen and had great success. Just yesterday I was filming a rock quarry near my house and had nowhere to take off from except in between high tension wires and a cell phone tower. Call it luck or stupidity but I had two successful flights that day no issues.


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