Range?

[WV. Rootman]

Risk taker!!!
Took me a week to get the courage to fly her.
Agreed, I have lots to learn. Lots!
I don't want to take it too far but want to avoid any disconnection if possible. Should be better than 300'.
Maybe the park has some issues there.
I'll try somewhere else and see.
I only went with Litchi after all the hype and everyone saying how great it is and how it solved all issues with the djigo app etc...
So distance out of equation. Is the djigo app safer, less prone to fly always?

Btw. Yes the park is in a neighborhood so there are many homes, condos.

Thank you

Mike, I am really on your side. It is good to learn and practice emergency situations. Know your controls well. Most fly always are the operators fault. I'm be 64 soon and my cognitive skills aren't like when I was 20. Get good at doing figure 8's . I know this advice wasn't part of your original post. I'm only presuming, which can get me into trouble. Your statement about distance after a few flights is what threw some. Some may be thinking and know there is so much to learn before you want to take off on a distance flight. When I was at the beach two weeks ago, I went 600 ft. out over the ocean with no problem. I tried to go inland and couldn't get past the first row of condos. I lost signal. I live in the country and going out of site is easy without loosing signal. I never lost signal flying within sight. I hope everything works out for you. Good luck flying!

 

[FlashBuddy]

Ditto on the cheap and accessible windsurfer parabolic add-ons.

Where there is no range, Litchi won't give range, except flying autonomous missions.

What's the point? If you need to fly/capture something and don't have the range, launch closer to your target. If that doesn't work and an autonomous Litchi mission won't meet your needs, then start modifying - antennas, batteries...

 

[Hayabusa1]

I've been practicing my rth a few times. I've yet to actually let get fully out of range and have it automatically rth.
As I mentioned, I'm not asking to do this to extend range so I can go fly miles away. Just wanted to improve my current distance I'd about 300' in my area.
Mike

 

[WV. Rootman]

Yea, 300 ft. does suck. Different area will help.

 

[Matfam]

I have a brand new P3S also. It didn't matter whether I was home, at a park, or in a rural school football field; I got 400-600' full LOS before my AC would auto return to home. Checking signal map, scores, gps, etc on Airdata showed 100% green. I downloaded a windsurfer template and made the thing, now I can get 1000' or so. As soon as I lose LOS it returns to home. All fine by me at this point, I can't see the thing much further out anyhow.

No idea why it indicates that it's losing signal, my data logs show 100% green.

 

[ifly2high]

I think you just have to "tough it out" and fly it. Learn a little each time, and do something a little different. At least that's what I try to do, anyway.

My 6 month old P4 (wih antenna extenders) on Litchi gets about 2200 feet distance. I got a bit more yesterday, (2800+) at 300+ feet altitude but was within a 100 feet of a very large cell tower that also serves a small regional airport a few miles away (deliberately flying in Sport mode toward it), and had 30 heart pounding seconds of Litchi reporting "no signal". I had wanted to fly around the tower, but at the "no signal" I curtailed the mission.

My response when I get 'no signal' is to take my hands off the controls and let the aircraft recover, and sometimes I turn the aircraft slowly to see if antenna orientation is a factor. I "hands offed" for this time, waited (I've set Litchi to "hover" with no signal), tried raising the altitude to gain some line of sight signal strength [it actually did increase altitude and it did turn, but I didn't have visual confirmation], until finally I could turn it back and bring it home. Reviewing the video looks like nothing happened. I'm glad I had taken extra magnesium because my heart really was pounding--but I was proud that I had stuck it out. That was the longest "no signal" I ever had.

From what I've read here, I'm wondering if I should get more distance, but I'm happy with what I have gotten (and not lost my aircraft).

 

[ifly2high]

Sounds like you're losing just video signal if you can still turn AC...give magic power mod a look, it can solve the video feed loss prob. Losing RC connection while still receiving video is much less stressful imo

(Sorry, messed that quote up...don't want to be mistaken for someone else...[emoji6])

 

[ethan.irish]

i m new to this and only 2 flights in but I love my new hobby.
I'm still very nervous on what it can and can't forget though. I took her up yesterday and maybe at an altitude of 150' and 250-300' distance, I was getting weak signal warnings. It would flash on and off. Of course I freaked and brought it closer. I thought the range would have been better. Now I was flying in a park/ soccer field etc... With lots of the tall stadium lights. Could any of this cause this?
I've tried rth manually and woks great but haven't had the balls to take it out if range and have it activate itself.
I went and installed Litchi last night and plan on doing some planned flights today. Will Litchi hive me all the range I need or should I still look at a range extender. Not planning on anything crazy or out of line of site but would still like to go farther than my $89.00 Holy Stone drone.

Thanks

Mike

I got the same alerts you did but I went further and they went away and came back occasionally. When the video started laggin out by going black, I just manually activated the RTH (flip the S2 switch, down, up, down, up and that activates it)

 

[smackc4]

Very likely WIFI interference, the P3S is quite susceptible. Residential areas are rife with it. Does this make sense in the context of where you were flying?

GOOD point. I've flown in areas without powerlines though, and same range problems, even WITH ARG and R/C boost

 

[FlashBuddy]

Powerlines? With the exception of having to dodge them I haven't run into any control issues around them, even some pretty hefty transmission lines, though I am aware of the corona effect they can pose. WiFi is thwarted by trees/leaves/water and household routers. Did you know water resonates at 2.4mhz?

 

[smackc4]

Powerlines? With the exception of having to dodge them I haven't run into any control issues around them, even some pretty hefty transmission lines, though I am aware of the corona effect they can pose. WiFi is thwarted by trees/leaves/water and household routers. Did you know water resonates at 2.4mhz?

Wasn't aware of the frequency of water - That's interesting!
Yeah, have entertained that as I DO often fly in areas with powerlines, but dismissed it when recently twice flew out in the country without any.

 

[smackc4]

PS; Love your signature saying! : 'Real life has no RTH button'