Strange behaviour

[DaveB68]

Morning guys,

Firstly, flying this morning (local field where I’ve flown before) and had a few weak / lost signal occurrences at about 400m away. As the fields grass was quite long I took off from a tennis court surrounded by a metal fence (about 3m height) Signal returned quite quickly and I flew back. Switched to Vertical Studio as I wanted to test “Rails” flew out to same spot and had no issues. Switched back to “GO’ Moved out of the tennis court and tried again and lost signal completely which initiated RTH. Bird flew home and hovered above home point at which point a red button appeared saying cancel landing (or similar) not seen that before but assume it’s for you to take control to land manually, correct??

Therefore would the fence which wasn’t really LOS as I was quite high interfere with the signal? But then didn’t seem to interfere with the VS app. I was keeping an eye on the signal on VS and it was fluctuating down to 90% but mainly stayed around 98%.

Secondly, GO app kept changing between video and photo modes. Every few seconds it would flick over to photo, then flick back on its own. Any idea?

Thirdly, when I landed after the RTH battery was at about 27% but was showing red. I’ve normally landed before 30% but sure when it has been under 30 it was only yellow…When I first took off battery was at 96% had not been used but had been charged a 2 or 3 days prior to this flight.

Appreciated any help, P3A has flown faultlessly prior to this so just a little disconcerting

Dave

 

[With The Birds]

Wire fence will definately affect signal and tennis court, if concrete, will almost cetainly contain reinforcing mesh so not an ideal launch site.

I dont know about the video to camera switching issue. It may be vertical studio switching to video mode? GO APP default when switching apps? Only guesses.

As to battery 3 days may be ok depending on what you have set as the auto discharge sertting. Personally i do everything I possibly can to fly within 12 hours of charging and try not to keep packs at 100% charge. They are most instable and age quickest at full charge.

 

[4wd]

Possibly this is implicated.
http://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/planetary-k-index.gif

 

[StratocasterDave]

The red x appears on the left allowing you to cancel the auto landing. That's what you saw.

 

[alokbhargava]

Issue seems to be due to fencing and tennis court. Find out another safe location for flying.

 

[DaveB68]

Cheers guys, flew again once since and no further issues (didn't fly far though) and didn't get the switching between photo and video on the go app. Shall see if re-occurs

Dave

 

[Meta4]

Possibly this is implicated.

Not a chance.
K-index has never shown any noticeable impact upon Phantom flying.
It's a much-hyped forum myth

 

[MikeyOnline]

One thing I've learned over the years fooling with various RC equipment is that literally everything causes interference. Even trees and non-metal objects that are not between you and the craft! That said, the interference caused by objects like a low fence or rebar in concrete where you are standing is usually minimal unless you run into a situation where they are configured "just so", causing a feedback of sorts (sort of like the ringing you get when you hit just the right note singing in the shower). In your case, I doubt a surrounding low fence or concrete rebar caused it unless you were standing pretty close to the fence. More likely some other type of interference in the area that day. Just IMO.

Mike