Could trackers cause navigation issues ?

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I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that its best practice that you don’t have your mobile phone switched on when near the Phantom. This being the case, what about the cellular capabilities of most trackers?

How many times have you heard the chirping interference caused by your phone when near a radio or speaker/intercom system? I believe this is the phone communicating with the network, which presumably means at this point it’s transmitting a signal to maintain network connectivity.

GPS trackers take a phone SIM so that you can request the GPS chip to send you its location. I’m wondering what the possible side effects are of the cellular module within the tracker whilst it’s communicating with the network.

Like all other phantom owners I’ve just bought a tracker and will be using it just in case the nightmare scenario arises. Ill be removing the magnetic cover so it wont affect the compass but I’m just wondering about the phone module within these trackers.
 
There are plenty of us who are using GPS trackers on our P2 with no problems so far. The phone data networks are operating on completely different bands to the P2.

GSM in the UK is 900MHz & 1800MHz, in the US it's 850MHz & 1900Mhz. The P2 is operating on the 2.4Ghz (and video on 5.8Ghz) so there is as much chance that the video transmitter will interfere. None.

The important thing is remove that magnetic cover and mount it away from the compass. You'll have no issues.
 
A tracker can interfere the radio communication when it sends its position. But it is only a very short time.
On some tracker you can setup the intervals between sending positions.

I am using the Garmin GTU10 tracker and can set it up to only send position on request, this is the best option for Phantom use.

The interval transmitting of position only make sense if using your tracker with the geofence function.
 
Absolutely no issues with my TK102B - P2 flies beautifully as it always has (on 1.8fw)

Same range, same video reception, tracker on, working and tested.

The only thing I triple check (regarding mobile phones etc) when setting up for flying is that the wifi on my iPhone is off.
 
goldfishrock said:
GSM in the UK is 900MHz & 1800MHz, in the US it's 850MHz & 1900Mhz. The P2 is operating on the 2.4Ghz (and video on 5.8Ghz) so there is as much chance that the video transmitter will interfere. None.

True - I suppose if there were any problems we would have seen evidence of a thread called "Tracker caused my P2 to Crash"
:)

Cheers.
 
My tracker should arrive tomorrow. Can you guys offer advice and pictures of how you mounted yours?
Internal/External, in the original case or stripped down?

TIA
 
goldfishrock said:
There are plenty of us who are using GPS trackers on our P2 with no problems so far. The phone data networks are operating on completely different bands to the P2.

GSM in the UK is 900MHz & 1800MHz, in the US it's 850MHz & 1900Mhz. The P2 is operating on the 2.4Ghz (and video on 5.8Ghz) so there is as much chance that the video transmitter will interfere. None.

The important thing is remove that magnetic cover and mount it away from the compass. You'll have no issues.

Well, this isn't entirely true. The closer you put your 5.8GHz vTX antenna to your 2.4GHz RC receiver antennas, the more you reduce your range. At such close proximity, without the use of notch filters, etc., the natural attennuation slope means anything transmitting will bleed over into other frequencies and harmonics. Even if the frequency attenuation makes the vTX pretty quiet, it can make a big difference.

Imagine someone standing 6 inches from you talking quietly non-stop while you are trying to understand what someone is yelling from very far away. This is why the general advice with FPV is keep your vTX as far as a possible from your RC antennas to get max range. The same applies for your tracker.

Fortuantely, your tracker is only transmitting network attach requests and dealing with handoffs so the traffic will be pretty sparse. But during those little bursts of communication, you can very well be disrupting the reception to your receiver depending on where and how you've mounted the tracker. Proximity is everything.
 
ianwood said:
.... Proximity is everything.

I agree. Unfortunately the real estate under the P2 is fairly crowded. I wanted to try and mount it so not to affect the COG too much. Having said that Ill probably end up strapping it to one of the legs like most of the other installations I've seen.
 

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