Struggling to get gps need help!

[Kylemd]

This has never happened before but now its taking way to long to find its satiltes. Its taking way ti long and sometimes it wont find any satiltes. Ill have to unplig it and tey again and hope to get lucky for it to find them. When it does work for once it will blink red occasionally as i fly. Not all the time but it will once in a while. It never did that before. Ill fly it than when its dead grab a charged lipo put it in and than it seems to find gps way faster the second flight right after the first. But it will still occasionally blink red. Is something going bad? Pleae help

 

[IflyinWY]

Welcome to the party Kylemd,

It would help a great deal if you could share some of the important points. Where are you flying? How do you know it's not getting any sats? Is your Phantom wearing an aluminum beanie?

Seriously, how much sky can your Phantom see?

Have you crashed it, and could there be something screwed up because of that?

 

[Kylemd]

Never has been crashed.
I have had it for a year
No aluminum beanie
Flying in northern Michigan on vacation
Blinks one green than 3 red continuously

 

[IflyinWY]

Perhaps the GPS has come unplugged while you were bouncing down the road to your vacation destination. Do you have the tools to open it up and check the plugs?

If you are buried in trees and hills, that could be the issue.
Have you flown up to any kind of altitude to see if you can get rid of the red light?

 

[Monte55]

Have you done any mods to the top of the phantom?

 

[Clive]

Just a few ideas. First, the time it takes to pick up satellites will vary tremendously. This is a factor of the GPS system itself, primarily. In theory, if you have moved a long way, or have not been flying for a while, it could take up to twelve minutes as the system loads it ephemeris data. A red light or two is not a problem after you have locked on, the number of satellites the phantom can see is dependent largely on the constellation geometry and there will be times when 6 plus are not visible, or when the receiver is changing the satellites it uses in its nav solution. When you change battery after flying once, the nav solution should be achieved very quickly as the receiver "knows" what satellites to look for, and already has timing corrections and emphemerides data. My advice, when flying somewhere new, is to allow plenty of time for the first "lock on" and to use some sort of GPS prediction app(there are several free ones available) to ensure that the constellation is configured so you have the right number of sats available. If local takes a long time, disconnect and reconnect the battery which will restart the acquisition process and should give it a kick. Most of all, the phantom can only see sats that are.... a. There and.... b.within line of sight so check the planning data and make sure you have an unobstructed view of the sky.