Rarely get all green LEDs on GPS now

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Since about May I have more and more had difficulty getting only green flashing lights in GPS mode. It is now green and one red. It always sets the home point and the craft does respond and fly as expected. I wait several minutes after all the setup lights etc have finished. But if is flashing one red after the home lock it stays that way. After some time flying it often eventually goes all green. Today as a example it only went all green near the end of the third flight. Since it has been doing this I have flown quite close and low. Though do put on some height for a while to see if it goes all green. Only venturing further if and when all greens are showing. But prior to May I only ever got green lights straightaway. I have flown in a few new areas and some were closer to trees- so blamed it on that. But more recent flights including today were in earlier completely open spaces and I had expected no issues. No crashes, no firmware changes. I did clean the top of the Phantom once it started doing it just in case any gunk had reduced the signal. The only thing I can now think of is whether brighter clear skys and bright sun might effect the GPS signal? As I still get a home lock should I be too concerned if I fly on one red flash? Any ideas?

cheers

bill
 
flying with even one red can effect stability negatively! hate to say it mate but it could be a bad compass, GPS, compass cable, or you do not have your RF GPS sheild on. next time you fly do a very thorough compass calibration before the flight. when you plug your craft into the Naza assistant software what is your compass mod value by the way?
 
only because this post is a couple days old i will take a shot at it even though i am a noob. i think the one red flash means that you only have 6 sats. if you had osd you would know how many. if you fly in atti mode it doesnt matter. is there a more experienced pilot who can answer your question?

to the op. did you do anthing to cover the top of the quad? and take alook at the compass onthe leg for damage etc.
 
Helveticus said:
:idea: Do the "aluminum foil" shielding mod !

I DOES dramatically improve the number of sats you'll get ;)

Read about the mod here : viewtopic.php?f=27&t=19099&p=187163&hilit=aluminum+foil#p187163

+1 I finally got around to doing this mod the other day, and it does make a significant impact on initial lock times as well as the ability to keep 7+ sats. It's important to be aware though that some areas are just bad for GPS reception in general, and may not benefit as much from this mod.

Looks neat anyway :D

p34dKY7l.jpg
 
Helveticus said:
:idea: Do the "aluminum foil" shielding mod !

I DOES dramatically improve the number of sats you'll get ;)

Read about the mod here : viewtopic.php?f=27&t=19099&p=187163&hilit=aluminum+foil#p187163

i am confused now. i thought that mod helped to shield the gps from interferance from the camera wifi signal. the complaint was when they hit record the number of sats would drop.when they stopped recording the number of sats jumped back up. i have heard reports of folks gettings sats faster and more of them with this mod, but i dont understand why this seems to happen. it is easy to test the record issue, not so much that shielding helps otherwise.
 
Well, in my case, yes, the mod helps a lot ! Maybe because I am in a very difficult place (narrow valley) ?

But it could be that those who fly in "normal places" do not see as much difference as I do, and only see that they loose less sats when they start recording :?
 
Hi,
Thanks for the replies. Hopefully I have found the answer (at least for me). I was given a web site http://satpredictor.navcomtech.com/ were you can check just how many satellites are visible in the area you type in. All of my recent flights have been in the same location but earlier in the day. These are coming up as having 6 satellites. I have now done a couple of days flights later in the day when 9 or 10 satellites are showing and have been getting all green leds! :)

cheers

bill
 
Excellent! It is surprising how the satellite availability varies across the hours.
 
Great little app. Thanks for the heads up!

Is there a way to know how many gps satellites the phantom has a locked onto other than some type of telemetry? I at first thought maybe the quick flashing green lights at power up was it but apparently not.

Tommy
 

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