RC range is poor - UK

[cozzykim]

I flew my Spark with RC and a Nexus 5 with no SIM and in airplane mode yesterday, at my bro's house where there's no WiFi apart from his own router.

We were flying away from the back of his house, on the opposite side to the router. I even made sure that my own phone (another Nexus 5) was in airplane mode, as there's no phone signal up there.

I could only get approx 110m from the RC before I started to get signal dropouts, both 'No Signal' and 'Weak Signal' alerts.
The connection was being lost quite a lot.
Moving the RC around to change the antenna orientation slightly (they were up at right angles to the RC) brought the signal back, at no time was the signal dropped for long enough to initiate a RTH.

I've had the same thing when flying vertically up from my back yard, in a small village so not as much interference as in a city with a lot of nearby WiFi.
With the antennas vertical and the AC directly above me I was getting disconnects every ten seconds or so. Again tilting the RC so that the antennas were not pointing at (longwise like pointing your finger) to the aircraft would reconnect.

So, it looks like the antennas have to be vertical(ish) when the aircraft is low and 100m away, and horizontal(ish) when the aircraft is directly above you.

This makes sense to me, as I have some knowledge of antenna function, but what doesn't make sense is the 100m part.

Am I really limited to just over 100m distance in the UK, even in ideal surroundings, that seems crazy?

It doesn't give me much confidence to fly even across a large field. I had my bro as a spotter BTW, the AC was LOS at all times, and over his land anyway.

 

[The Editor]

I flew my Spark with RC and a Nexus 5 with no SIM and in airplane mode yesterday, at my bro's house where there's no WiFi apart from his own router.

We were flying away from the back of his house, on the opposite side to the router. I even made sure that my own phone (another Nexus 5) was in airplane mode, as there's no phone signal up there.

I could only get approx 110m from the RC before I started to get signal dropouts, both 'No Signal' and 'Weak Signal' alerts.
The connection was being lost quite a lot.
Moving the RC around to change the antenna orientation slightly (they were up at right angles to the RC) brought the signal back, at no time was the signal dropped for long enough to initiate a RTH.

I've had the same thing when flying vertically up from my back yard, in a small village so not as much interference as in a city with a lot of nearby WiFi.
With the antennas vertical and the AC directly above me I was getting disconnects every ten seconds or so. Again tilting the RC so that the antennas were not pointing at (longwise like pointing your finger) to the aircraft would reconnect.

So, it looks like the antennas have to be vertical(ish) when the aircraft is low and 100m away, and horizontal(ish) when the aircraft is directly above you.

This makes sense to me, as I have some knowledge of antenna function, but what doesn't make sense is the 100m part.

Am I really limited to just over 100m distance in the UK, even in ideal surroundings, that seems crazy?

It doesn't give me much confidence to fly even across a large field. I had my bro as a spotter BTW, the AC was LOS at all times, and over his land anyway.

Normal for CE mode EIRP output.
Please use the search function on the forum and you will find a lot of information regarding range differences between CE and FCC modes.

Don’t think we really need another ‘Poor Range in CE mode’ thread!

 

[cozzykim]

Normal for CE mode EIRP output.
Please use the search function on the forum and you will find a lot of information regarding range differences between CE and FCC modes.

Don’t think we really need another ‘Poor Range in CE mode’ thread!

Yes, I appreciate that, and your sarky comment, thanks.

I'm just surprised at how poor the range really is in CE mode, 100m as opposed to over a mile in some cases.

 

[The Editor]

Yes, I appreciate that, and your sarky comment, thanks.

I'm just surprised at how poor the range really is in CE mode, 100m as opposed to over a mile in some cases.

Not sarcastic in the slightest.
I answered your question and considered that yet another ‘poor range in CE mode’ style thread would serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

 

[cozzykim]

How would I know that 100m is "normal" without asking?

 

[The Editor]

How would I know that 100m is "normal" without asking?

Refer to my first post - use the search function on the forum.
Numerous ‘FCC v CE distance’ type threads.
In fact, DJI’s own specification page gives relevant distance differences between FCC and CE TX output in both 5.8 and 2.4 ghz spectrums. Since distances quoted are an absolute maximum in ideal conditions (the same as manufacturers MPG distances) these can never be achieved in real world scenarios.
FYI, irrespective of whether you where ‘over your own land’ or not - the maximum permissible distance you are legally allowed to fly in the UK is 500m/VLOS (without the aid of binoculars etc).

 

[cozzykim]

Which is a lot more than 100m so...

FYI, I have previously searched, and read the posts from mid 2017 onwards which started to ask these questions.

I'll say it once more, purely for those 'hard of understanding' of course - 100m seems to be very short indeed.

 

[The Editor]

Which is a lot more than 100m so...

FYI, I have previously searched, and read the posts from mid 2017 onwards which started to ask these questions.

I'll say it once more, purely for those 'hard of understanding' of course - 100m seems to be very short indeed.

Now who's the one being sarcastic. (Rhetorical)

 

[cozzykim]

Who me, nahhhh.

You've successfully stifled any chance of me forming an opinion of whether this sort of range is to be expected or not, and potentially under what varying conditions, though, so well done I take my hat off to you.

 

[Lastrexking]

Dunno if you have an iOS device, but you’ll get much better range if you have.

I think the problem is that android sticks to 2.4ghz, which seems to be poorer.. I don’t think you can switch to 5.8 on android, but you can on iOS, hence greater distance - maybe someone familiar with android will correct me.

Edit to add - Flying any quad directly above you (regardless of antenna direction) will yield poor results. Also, I’m in rural Yorkshire and if I select 2.4ghz it’s still very busy with lots of interference. Switch to 5.8, and it’s empty and I got a tad over 300 meters, with room for more - but I couldn’t see it and don’t like being out of vlos as it’s against the advice, and it worries me if anything goes wrong.

 

[cozzykim]

Dunno if you have an iOS device, but you’ll get much better range if you have.

I think the problem is that android sticks to 2.4ghz, which seems to be poorer.. I don’t think you can switch to 5.8 on android, but you can on iOS, hence greater distance - maybe someone familiar with android will correct me.

Edit to add - Flying any quad directly above you (regardless of antenna direction) will yield poor results. Also, I’m in rural Yorkshire and if I select 2.4ghz it’s still very busy with lots of interference. Switch to 5.8, and it’s empty.

Thanks.

I think that the RC connects to the AC via 5GHz, ISTR that last time I looked it was CH149 (could be mistaken).
Certainly, when the AC tries connect to an Android phone directly it can switch to a 5GHz channel that is outside the range of channels used for EU Android devices, and thus it never appears on the phone's SSID list until you reset it to 2.4GHz by pressing and waiting for the '3 beeps'.

I'll check but I'm pretty sure that the RC tries to default to 5GHz when I connect the AC to the RC.

I don't think that it should make much difference at that short range normally, although I'm thinking that maybe misty/foggy conditions can have greater or lesser influence on Tx/Rx range depending on frequency. 5GHz will probably be attenuated more than 2.4GHz in those conditions.

EDIT: Yes, the 5GHz band is more or less empty here too my own router is the only one locally broadcasting a dual SSID on 2.4 and 5GHz and that only because I achieve higher throughput with 5GHz on my fibre BB.

 

[Lastrexking]

Thanks.

I think that the RC connects to the AC via 5GHz, ISTR that last time I looked it was CH149 (could be mistaken).
Certainly, when the AC tries connect to an Android phone directly it can switch to a 5GHz channel that is outside the range of channels used for EU Android devices, and thus it never appears on the phone's SSID list until you reset it to 2.4GHz by pressing and waiting for the '3 beeps'.

I'll check but I'm pretty sure that the RC tries to default to 5GHz when I connect the AC to the RC.

I don't think that it should make much difference at that short range normally, although I'm thinking that maybe misty/foggy conditions can have greater or lesser influence on Tx/Rx range depending on frequency. 5GHz will probably be attenuated more than 2.4GHz in those conditions.

I get nowhere at 2.4 - might be just me though.
The Spark rc system is a bit poor, which is a shame as I think it’s a great little drone - but being in a CE zone makes it worse. Not just distance wise ( I’m not bothered how far it goes), but for a strong stable signal. It’s whats stopping me getting a Mavic Air and sticking with my Mavic Pro.

Things that might help are signal boosters. They’re only a couple of quid, or if you’re feeling brave the hacked version of Go4 which lets you switch to fcc.

 

[cozzykim]

Yes, I think that signal reflectors will definitely help, and a no brainer for the price if this is a common problem.

What dish size should I go for, 1m, 3m? (just kidding).

I wonder what gain the 'parabolic' reflectors actually give in db, the ebay ones don't look that 'parabolic' to me, probably just a big radius.
Even better probably in the real world, you wouldn't want a too tightly focused 'beam'.

 

[Lastrexking]

Yes, I think that signal reflectors will definitely help, and a no brainer for the price if this is a common problem.

What dish size should I go for, 1m, 3m? (just kidding).

I wonder what gain the 'parabolic' reflectors actually give in db, the ebay ones don't look that 'parabolic' to me, probably just a big radius.
Even better probably in the real world, you wouldn't want a too tightly focused 'beam'.

I’ve got an old Sky dish you can have

 

[Teddy]

Which is a lot more than 100m so...

FYI, I have previously searched, and read the posts from mid 2017 onwards which started to ask these questions.

I'll say it once more, purely for those 'hard of understanding' of course - 100m seems to be very short indeed.

I agree, 100m is not what I would call an acceptable range for use with the RC. Your movie phone yes but the RC I would expect it to be close to 1000, even if you don't intend to fly long range the signal stability is what is needed.

 

[Teddy]

Dunno if you have an iOS device, but you’ll get much better range if you have.

I think the problem is that android sticks to 2.4ghz, which seems to be poorer.. I don’t think you can switch to 5.8 on android, but you can on iOS, hence greater distance - maybe someone familiar with android will correct me.

Edit to add - Flying any quad directly above you (regardless of antenna direction) will yield poor results. Also, I’m in rural Yorkshire and if I select 2.4ghz it’s still very busy with lots of interference. Switch to 5.8, and it’s empty and I got a tad over 300 meters, with room for more - but I couldn’t see it and don’t like being out of vlos as it’s against the advice, and it worries me if anything goes wrong.

Actually the range potential for 2.4Ghz is greater than 5.8Ghz. Check out the DJI specs plus look as signal strength under the regs. The downside of 2.4 GHz being g its a more crowded bandwidth so more prone to interference.

 

[Matthew Marston]

I live in the UK and my Spark has flown more than 100m

 

[cozzykim]

I live in the UK and my Spark has flown more than 100m

I'm sure that's the case, and I'm hoping that the range improves as I get familiar with which band works best in different places, and as the weather improves (less mist & fog droplets in the air).

 

[Lastrexking]

Just did a little test. I got 242m, then I couldn’t see it anymore. That’s a bright clear day in farmland, on a river bank.

 

[Spark 317]

I sometimes practice in the simulator and rely on the instruments to guide me around in case I do lose it in the real world.

Lot of good information on hand when flying blind.