I met Gremlins at 1000 ft.

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I've been thinking about going for the 1000' altitude mark ever since getting my aircraft. I got tired of making excuses for not doing and decided wind be damned, I'm going for it. For safety reasons, and the high winds out of the south, I picked a good open field with nothing but grasslands to the north. Everything starting off great, kept climbing and climbing, checking telemetry continuously while trying to maintain eye contact at which I gave up around 700' and just concentrated on the screen. Then I hit about 1050' and stopped ascent and I was going to rotate 360 degrees for the view but as soon as I turned 180 degrees, "Loss Of Signal"..1...2...3..."Coming Home". I thinking OK, I'll wait till it gets to about 700 then move S1 to middle and back up to regain control. Well, the thing is, it wasn't descending. I'm at about 70% on battery. I'm not sure why I didn't see or notice a descent. I'm wondering if somehow the wind could have been a factor making it an EXTREMELY slow descent. I didn't wait to find out and started toggling S1 between top and middle, and for the few seconds I had control, I'd lower about 10 feet. I finally reacquired full control about 700 feet I think and continued to bring her down. One other strange thing is that I had a nice, smooth touchdown, but as soon as I landed, I got the message. "Compass Malfunction Maintenance Required". Have no idea what brought that on but I powered everything off, recalibrated and did a quick test flight with no other compass errors. Any ideas on that? Thanks in advance. A couple of problems, but it was good experience in the end

Regards,
J.

PS I'll have video of my 1000 ft climb and LOS in just a bit.
 
Couple ideas..

Avoid null area of your antenna
Make sure you are in FCC mode (sounded like you are)
Make your batteries are fully charged (wifi extender, RC Controller)
Have the craft facing 90 degree or 270 degree from you.
Set your geo-fencing to desire distance.
Move copter maybe about 100 feet out then up.

If that still doesn't work, I'd open up WiFi Extender, RC Controller, and P2V+ and examine to make sure the connectors are snug.


As far as compass issue, no idea what that's about. Maybe try calibrating it before flying.
 
First the 30mph sustained winds on your other flight, now this....! You have had a full day. ;)

I am new to all of this and have logged 22 flights...no crashes. The highest I have been is 50 meters. LOL

Your choice of music seemed very appropriate.

I wish you continued good luck.

Dan
 
Thank you both for the kind replies. I honestly don't see me flying that high again. Its kind of like a teenage boy and losing his virginity. You are as nervous as hell and want to get it out of the way. lol The Phantom flew like a dream once I got it back down to lower altitudes and I've never had a LOS except at 700 ft and 1000 ft. The compass seemed fine after I restarted everything and calibrated it. I did a test flight after that and the problem did not repeat it self, even with the damned 30 mph winds. Now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps the compass issue had to do with me trying to get control back by repeatedly switching from S1 top to S2 middle I know I did it more than 5 times, that's for sure. Thanks again.

Joel
 
Question. When control signal is lost and after 3 seconds you see "Coming Home", does it start to descend right that second? Are there factors that could affect the descent like high winds? Or more likely me trying to get control back? I'm guessing if there were a serious problem I wouldn't have gotten the aircraft home but it just has me perplexed a bit. I'm replaying it all over in my mind trying to figure out if I should have waited longer for it to descend on its own before I tried taking back over. Thank you!
 
JWarren said:
Question. When control signal is lost and after 3 seconds you see "Coming Home", does it start to descend right that second? Are there factors that could affect the descent like high winds? Or more likely me trying to get control back? I'm guessing if there were a serious problem I wouldn't have gotten the aircraft home but it just has me perplexed a bit. I'm replaying it all over in my mind trying to figure out if I should have waited longer for it to descend on its own before I tried taking back over. Thank you!

If you are 20m "above" your home position, it moves to your home position then decent to your home position.

If you are "below" your home position plus 20m, it moves 20m above your home position height, then move to your home position then decent.
 
right there I have my explanation. I should have left it alone and let it do its job. Thank you yawnalot, I'll sleep better tonight knowing I was the problem and not my Phantom.

Best wishes,
J.
 
JWarren said:
I've been thinking about going for the 1000' altitude mark ever since getting my aircraft. I got tired of making excuses for not doing and decided wind be damned, I'm going for it. For safety reasons, and the high winds out of the south, I picked a good open field with nothing but grasslands to the north. Everything starting off great, kept climbing and climbing, checking telemetry continuously while trying to maintain eye contact at which I gave up around 700' and just concentrated on the screen. Then I hit about 1050' and stopped ascent and I was going to rotate 360 degrees for the view but as soon as I turned 180 degrees, "Loss Of Signal"..1...2...3..."Coming Home". I thinking OK, I'll wait till it gets to about 700 then move S1 to middle and back up to regain control. Well, the thing is, it wasn't descending. I'm at about 70% on battery. I'm not sure why I didn't see or notice a descent. I'm wondering if somehow the wind could have been a factor making it an EXTREMELY slow descent. I didn't wait to find out and started toggling S1 between top and middle, and for the few seconds I had control, I'd lower about 10 feet. I finally reacquired full control about 700 feet I think and continued to bring her down. One other strange thing is that I had a nice, smooth touchdown, but as soon as I landed, I got the message. "Compass Malfunction Maintenance Required". Have no idea what brought that on but I powered everything off, recalibrated and did a quick test flight with no other compass errors. Any ideas on that? Thanks in advance. A couple of problems, but it was good experience in the end

Regards,
J.

PS I'll have video of my 1000 ft climb and LOS in just a bit.

Not sure where the Phantom was in relation to you (obviously above you lol) If it was directly above with the antenna pointing directly at the bottom of it, this could explain the loss of signal. The radio waves extend from the 'sides' of the antenna not the tip. If you go straight up again, try having the antenna horizontal or side-on to the Phantom. ;)
 
was it directly above you? If so, keep in mind the antennas are on the sides of the phantom. Having it at least a couple hundred feet horizontally away and sideways from you with the transmitter antenna pointing straight towards the sky is better for high altitude runs than having it directly over your head.
 
JWarren said:
Hi PhantomM. I had turned the antenna horizontal with the ground.

However, keep in mind that both the antennas on the Phantom itself are still pointing straight down at you when it is directly above you. This is their weakest reception orientation. So even with the TX turned horizontal, the radio can still lose contact with the Phantom.
 
Thank you all. So if someone is going to fly higher altitudes it's best to have the TX antenna up and the drone about 75 - 100 yards out horizontally before ascending? Thanks!
 
JWarren said:
Thank you all. So if someone is going to fly higher altitudes it's best to have the TX antenna up and the drone about 75 - 100 yards out horizontally before ascending? Thanks!

Yes. That's why in my earlier respond I suggested maybe you want to fly it out about 100 feet away from you. I don't think you need to go 100 yard, but just not directly above you.
 
JWarren said:
Thank you all. So if someone is going to fly higher altitudes it's best to have the TX antenna up and the drone about 75 - 100 yards out horizontally before ascending? Thanks!

Yes definitely have the antenna up. I think you can vary the distance horizontally based on your target altitude. Because with the antenna up, you always want to point the front side of the controller towards the bird for best TX/RX. And it may be more convenient at very high target altitude to have it further away before ascending. Just so you can have less of an angle on the controller.
 

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