How close is too close?

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From what I am reading you can't go close to power lines, cell towers, or railways or it will just fly away and end up on ebay (like the one on there now: "Found on the beach, no remote") and your home point cannot have any metal or other electronics nearby or else your compass will go screwy. Very scary!

How much of that is true?
How close to regular power lines can I safely fly? One thread a user mentioned he can fly right up to the ones that hum! In contrast, comments on a youtube of a fly-away say things like "of course it flew away.. you flew withing a few hundred feet of a power line."
How close to cell towers before it goes wacko?
How close to train tracks? Does it matter if a train is not on it? Does it matter if they are just the metal tracks, not powered?

Thanks,

Sean

P.S. Anyone use this model? http://www.loc8tor.com/everyday/loc8tor-lite-rc.html/
 
I can't really comment about cell towers or railways, but I've flown around power lines, as there's several around my house, many times and haven't noticed any unusual behavior. I've even flown somewhat close to the transformer to check connections and it was very stable and flown the same as it does anywhere else. I think as long as you don't recieve any signals from the frequency your phantom runs on you shouldn't have any problems, but don't quote me on that as it's only an informed opinon based on what I know. I think I even have a video on here of my flying my phantom with power lines close by, but I can always post another tomorrow for better proof if you'd like.
 
Thank you very much, kitari. I watched a bunch of crash compilations and fly away videos to try and discourage myself from purchasing one. It didn't work, just got me really scared.
 
There is a run of HV power lines that runs through the area I fly in (one of the consequences of flying in an unpopulated area close in is, often, that's also where they run the powerlines). I haven't had any problems yet, though I try to stay away from them as much as possible. Closest I've gotten is maybe 8-10 feet... but usually it's more like 25-30.
The problem I'm anticipating, though, is the frequency and amount of radiation of the lines likely shifts somewhat depending on the current power draw. And there may come a time when it more closely matches the frequency of the Phantom. So while I've been okay so far, that doesn't mean I'll always be good.
But, with the "10 second rule" built into the latest firmware, and the fact that the tx binds to the Phantom with a handshake that random powerlines would have a hard time spoofing, I suspect the risk is fairly minimal.
 
It depends on the shielding on those lines. Sometimes you can fly 1 foot away. But there are also videos showing lost signal and triggering RTH because some old power lines are 100+ feet away.
 
witold said:
It depends on the shielding on those lines. Sometimes you can fly 1 foot away. But there are also videos showing lost signal and triggering RTH because some old power lines are 100+ feet away.

Perhaps the weather might also have an effect, such as a high humidity might help the rf splatter coming off those poorly shielded line. Thats makes for a more intermittent issue, all the harder to do diagnostics.

I remember 35 years ago when I would run a 500 watt cb linear amplifier, I would get more complaints when it was raining from my neighbors as they could hear me talking on their tv sets.
 
At our summer place I've noticed that theres one place where my Phantom stays solidly in its position. Fly 100ft to another direction and it starts toilet bowling, or should I say super-bowling making a huge circles. Go another 100ft and it seems that it wants to fly/bank into the forest for some weird reason. Although its responsive all the time, so I can keep controlling it.

In my opinion compass might be the number one interference risk in Phantom. Hopefully DJI will develop the Naza/Firmware in a such a direction where Naza's logic is able to recognize the faulty readings and act accordingly removing the faulty movement of the Phantom.
 

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