After 3 weeks flying, a few questions on RTH and range. And PICS!!

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I've own my P3P for about 3 weeks now with almost 200k ft and 7 hours flying time.

First thing is it seems weird if I fly straight up to 400ft I get weak RC signal at only 400ft. If it's straight over my head is it my iPad blocking my antenna? Seems weird at just 400ft.

Second I'm surprised at how inaccurate RTH seems to be. Seems like it's anywhere around 10-20feet from home point. What's up with that? Seems pretty consistently inconsistent.

Other than those two items, occasional compass errors, seems to work great. I love this thing.
 
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You need to have the transmitter pointing upward - mine ends up almost upside down above my head If I am directly overhead. Fly out further and it isnt a problem.
I have only used RTH twice and i turn it off when I can see the P3 and catch land it manually.

Nice photos where is that? Weather looks great!
 
Just remember to have your antenna oriented correctly. When directly overhead, it's best to have them parallel to the ground. When not directly overhead, it's best to have them more perpendicular to the ground and facing your Phantom.

Personally, I try to avoid ever being directly overhead.

I hope that helps!
 
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Pics are from Portland Oregon. Yes I've cancelled nearly all of my RTH's when it's overhead. But say the transmitter went dead or worse, would be nice if it went where it's supposed to. Since it seems to hover so perfectly still with GPS lock, I don't see how RTH seems to be all over the place. Yesterday I set it on the driveway and it started to land on my pickup.
 
A few more shots: Nike campus with new addition construction crane in the foreground, new Trillium bridge opened 2 weeks ago and behind it Ross Island bridge in Portland Oregon, then OMSI museum also in Portland.

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Pics are from Portland Oregon. Yes I've cancelled nearly all of my RTH's when it's overhead. But say the transmitter went dead or worse, would be nice if it went where it's supposed to. Since it seems to hover so perfectly still with GPS lock, I don't see how RTH seems to be all over the place. Yesterday I set it on the driveway and it started to land on my pickup.

Probably was getting a bad compass reading due to being over concrete (re-bar under the concrete messes up the compass reading).

My P3P RTH is usually accurate to within a 1' or so.
 
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First thing is it seems weird if I fly straight up to 400ft I get weak RC signal at only 400ft. If it's straight over my head is it my iPad blocking my antenna? Seems weird at just 400ft.

not sure what's happening on your side of the pond but my buddy has just loaded the latest FW on his P3P and here in the UK the legal height limit is 400ft, without him setting anything, on his screen now it's showing 120mts max height limit,(roughly 400ft) we recon DJI has included the height and distance limit into the latest FW
 
not sure what's happening on your side of the pond but my buddy has just loaded the latest FW on his P3P and here in the UK the legal height limit is 400ft, without him setting anything, on his screen now it's showing 120mts max height limit,(roughly 400ft) we recon DJI has included the height and distance limit into the latest FW

That's always been the limit as far as I know.
 
Probably was getting a bad compass reading due to being over concrete (re-bar under the concrete messes up the compass reading).

My P3P RTH is usually accurate to within a 1' or so.
My P3A RTH is accurate to around 2 foot.
 
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not sure what's happening on your side of the pond but my buddy has just loaded the latest FW on his P3P and here in the UK the legal height limit is 400ft, without him setting anything, on his screen now it's showing 120mts max height limit,(roughly 400ft) we recon DJI has included the height and distance limit into the latest FW

You should be able to adjust the max height to 500 meters above ground level, or 1650ft . This can be changed in the Go app to 500 meters, are you saying it won't let you change it? This added height is for when you're in mountain areas and you need more than 120 meters height to stay above ground level.

Regarding RTH accuracy, I'm not sure why anyone needs it to be spot on. I've never used it, I always take control over when it gets close and manually land myself. Can someone explain a scenario where manual landing is NOT the best method to protect the investment? The only one I can think of is if you get drunk after you take off, and we all know you shouldn't be drinking and flying anyway. ;-)
 
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Pics are from Portland Oregon. Yes I've cancelled nearly all of my RTH's when it's overhead. But say the transmitter went dead or worse, would be nice if it went where it's supposed to. Since it seems to hover so perfectly still with GPS lock, I don't see how RTH seems to be all over the place. Yesterday I set it on the driveway and it started to land on my pickup.
Directly overhead is always going to be the trickiest position for good signal.
It's because of the angles between your antenna and the antenna in the Phantom.
When you go straight up, there's no way to achieve a good angle.

Your RTH query is due to GPS which is not pinpoint accurate.
Most of the time it will be within 2 metres but sometimes a bit more.
Your Phantom hovers in place better than that because it has a bunch of other sensors that detect movement and it uses them together with GPS.
There's no need to let RTH land anyway.
Who can pick a better landing spot - you or a blind machine with +/- a few metres accuracy?
 
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You should be able to adjust the max height to 500 meters above ground level, or 1650ft . This can be changed in the Go app to 500 meters, are you saying it won't let you change it? This added height is for when you're in mountain areas and you need more than 120 meters height to stay above ground level.

Regarding RTH accuracy, I'm not sure why anyone needs it to be spot on. I've never used it, I always take control over when it gets close and manually land myself. Can someone explain a scenario where manual landing is NOT the best method to protect the investment? The only one I can think of is if you get drunk after you take off, and we all know you shouldn't be drinking and flying anyway. ;-)


I can adjust the altitude limit. That's not a problem. I can think of a number of scenarios where you'd want it to at least land near home. Dead controller, some immediate emergency or interruption. It would be nice if it didn't hit a tree or try landing on the car in my driveway.
 
I can think of a number of scenarios where you'd want it to at least land near home. Dead controller, some immediate emergency or interruption. It would be nice if it didn't hit a tree or try landing on the car in my driveway.
There are some things that you have to think about and control if you always want to have a Phantom to play with. Auto everything just won't do it all.
Understand how it works and what it's limitations are and use accordingly.
How's that possible if civilian GPS is supposedly only accurate to within 3 meters?
Consumer GPS will mostly be within 1.5-2 metres.
Sometimes pretty close to right on target - but sometimes further out.
That's a limitation of the technology but it's still a world away from the results I'd get doing spherical trigonometry calculations for multiple satellites 20000 km away to derive a position fix.
 
Last night I RTH'd just to see and it landed within 1 meter. Not bad. I don't normally use RTH though as I'm a decent pilot with a bit of RC heli and plane experience.
 
In a safe area I can max out at 500m pretty much overhead thanks to circular polarised RC antenna mod. That's one way around it.
 
Also it's good to hit RTH every once in a while when the p3 isn't too far away to make sure it's working as designed. It would suck to realise it's not working when/if the p3 was a greater distance away and surrounded by obstructions
 
I have a new standard that I bought last weekend. Everything seems to work great but no matter where I fly it it always turns on the return to home mode at about 425 feet away. It says lost RC signal.
 
Also it's good to hit RTH every once in a while when the p3 isn't too far away to make sure it's working as designed. It would suck to realise it's not working when/if the p3 was a greater distance away and surrounded by obstructions
It's almost certainly going to work properly.
What's much more important is that the pilot gets practice and understanding of how RTH works so they can use it when needed.
It would suck to be in a panic and not know how to properly activate RTH.
 

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