The Official "My P4 Range Is Too Short" Thread - Don't Start New Range Threads!

So I decided to do some testing. I went out to open farmland. See below:

Bone Stock P4 @ 400 feet elevation: 7200ish started to get signal issues. Pushed it to 8473 and it started dropping out pretty bad.
P4 with windsurders @ 400 feet elevation: Same signal issues at 7700. Really started cutting out, going 1/2 or full second without signal. RTH initiated after signal drop at 8594.

So, how peeps are getting 20,000 is beyond me. That is amazing that you do, but not feasible for me.
 
Check out the setups available at maxxuav.com. Great knowledgeable customer service. Easily doubled or triple your range. Only limited by the battery now.
 
So I decided to do some testing. I went out to open farmland. See below:

Bone Stock P4 @ 400 feet elevation: 7200ish started to get signal issues. Pushed it to 8473 and it started dropping out pretty bad.
P4 with windsurders @ 400 feet elevation: Same signal issues at 7700. Really started cutting out, going 1/2 or full second without signal. RTH initiated after signal drop at 8594.

So, how peeps are getting 20,000 is beyond me. That is amazing that you do, but not feasible for me.
Dude if you are getting that distance with stock controllers, a DBS02 mod from Maxxuav will probably get you in the 15k range a boosted setup will out fly your battery.
 
So I decided to do some testing. I went out to open farmland. See below:

Bone Stock P4 @ 400 feet elevation: 7200ish started to get signal issues. Pushed it to 8473 and it started dropping out pretty bad.
P4 with windsurders @ 400 feet elevation: Same signal issues at 7700. Really started cutting out, going 1/2 or full second without signal. RTH initiated after signal drop at 8594.

So, how peeps are getting 20,000 is beyond me. That is amazing that you do, but not feasible for me.

All depends on interference. I flew 2.5 miles in an open area with the stock controller and no windsurfers. Went to another area and with just some tree interferences was only able to push 7000ft before losing signal and having to throw on windsurfers.

Definitely interested in a boosted setup just to be able to fly farther in the congested areas. Oh and those fancy car antennas!
 
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All depends on interference. I flew 2.5 miles in an open area with the stock controller and no windsurfers. Went to another area and with just some tree interferences was only able to push 7000ft before losing signal and having to throw on windsurfers.

Definitely interested in a boosted setup just to be able to fly farther in the congested areas. Oh and those fancy car antennas!

The congested area theory is indeed the real deal. Just last night i was flying both my P4 and my P3 close to my house, which is in town. Normally I get great distances out of both, but last night I flew my P4 for a while, up to about 400 - 600 ft away, no issue, kind of an "around the block" type thing (mind you, the area in front of my house is empty lots and trees as well as a church that of course isn't occupied on a Monday, so I didn't fly over houses or people, I know better!) and all was fine as usual. But I connected up my P3 advanced afterwards and got a weird error that I discovered the other day once which was something about power the AC off and try again, otherwise contact DJI (related to the camera and encryption I think?) but after a power cycle of RC, AC and iPad all was fine...anyway I didn't even get 550ft out before the video started getting choppy. I of course checked the channels and there was serious activity on them in Auto indicating serious interference. So conditions definitely are the killers of distance here without a doubt.
 
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Here is a video I compiled yesterday , both flights were performed on the weekend, we had slight wind gusts but the test went great,
both birds are very impressive, watch the Phantom 4 gaining on P3P quite funny, and of course judge it for yourself,
I flew both birds as far as I could pushing through loss of fpv a few times and eventually completely losing connection to controllers,
they both returned on their own :)
P4 fitted with BTG ND 16 Filter
 
Here is a video I compiled yesterday , both flights were performed on the weekend, we had slight wind gusts but the test went great,
both birds are very impressive, watch the Phantom 4 gaining on P3P quite funny, and of course judge it for yourself,
I flew both birds as far as I could pushing through loss of fpv a few times and eventually completely losing connection to controllers,
they both returned on their own :)
P4 fitted with BTG ND 16 Filter
Great video! I stay on the P4 side :)

Thanks for sharing
 
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Here is a video I compiled yesterday , both flights were performed on the weekend, we had slight wind gusts but the test went great,
both birds are very impressive, watch the Phantom 4 gaining on P3P quite funny, and of course judge it for yourself,
I flew both birds as far as I could pushing through loss of fpv a few times and eventually completely losing connection to controllers,
they both returned on their own :)
P4 fitted with BTG ND 16 Filter

Thanks for the video morph1! Maybe put a bit a description of how far each flew in your post. Its a bit hard to watch through the video to see tiny range numbers and to scroll back and forth to find out what they were.
 
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Try custom channels, also keep in mind of how much interference you have around you. I have places I can fly 12,000 feet on stock controller and then have places where I can't get passed 3,000 feet
 
I reported range issue in the urban area, RTHed at 475 m distance where my P3P had never had a problem in that area, I fly both in the area as a matter of fact I had never had an RTH on my P3P,
the second flight with my P4 lost signal with the controller and auto returned to home point, this really made me worried as the craft also drifted out of sight before initiating RTH and returning.
I also ran a distance flight with P4 in a rural area and it was incredible making no problem 4.25 km each way and landing with 40% battery life... so there you go, there is definitely something changed in P4 and DJI claims it's all the same, I think they are trying to limit the range within residential area for liability purpose, why I do not know...
Nevertheless the P4 is a fantastic quad-copter if they can make it to match P3P range I would be dancing on a cloud with a case of beer !

CONTROLLER SPECS

Phantom 3P
Frequency Range (MHZ) 2406.5 - 2476.5
Output Watts 0.746

================================

Phantom 4
Frequency Range (MHZ) 2406.5 - 2476.5
Output Watts 0.598
Could the fact your flying in residential areas, with all those houses and all those 2.4 and 5.8ghz WiFi signals, hotspots and who knows what possibly have something to do with it?
 
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the area you are in is the main factor i believe.

I filmed in thailand and could fly further then i felt comfortable for the most part. In various parts of Los angeles I keep getting return to home automatically kicking in when i get too far... Albeit i am still a good distance away. But any long range shots give me serious issues... slightly annoying, but i don't do long range shots too often. plus who really needs to go that far anyways.
 
So I'm starting to notice that I can go a lot farther with completely open line of contact. Once you mix some tree, not even a lot, into the mix, the range decreases 2-3 times.
I'm seeing the exact thing here. One thing I don't like is I lost or when it goes out, the signal all at once too, but I've seen pics of ppl having 2 or 3 bars which I can't get, my video signal degrades but still showed full signal, until the one time it disconnected. I'd love to see a more realistic approach to these bars graphs, so maybe no matter what, at 900 to 1000 yards it should show 4/5 at least, even mathematically, every 1000 yards to lose one bar would be about right, then by the time your down to one bar, your out 4 kilometers . So one bar should be 1000m as they claim 5 kilometers but I go full to gone in 820m exactly (through trees) I hate that.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
I'm seeing the exact thing here. One thing I don't like is I lost or when it goes out, the signal all at once too, but I've seen pics of ppl having 2 or 3 bars which I can't get, my video signal degrades but still showed full signal, until the one time it disconnected. I'd love to see a more realistic approach to these bars graphs, so maybe no matter what, at 900 to 1000 yards it should show 4/5 at least, even mathematically, every 1000 yards to lose one bar would be about right, then by the time your down to one bar, your out 4 kilometers . So one bar should be 1000m as they claim 5 kilometers but I go full to gone in 820m exactly (through trees) I hate that.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
Are you flying in manual channel mode or automatic. Automatic might do this because it sets higher transfer rate. If you fly manual and set it to 4mbps you should see way better results with not switching channels and changing bandwidths
 
My P4's range today was atrocious. At 40 meters up, i'm getting weak image transmission messages and super choppy pixelated feed from as near as 150 meters out. this is crap. That was on 6mbps bitrate. And this is at one of my regular spots which is a huge open field with no buildings in the way.

Switched to 4mbps and it seemed to fix the issue.

My P3A powers through this place without a drop in video feed and never did I even get a weak image transmission message too.
 
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