Need help with faulty no-fly zones

[Al Bondigas]

I live near a decommissioned air force base that has since been sold and is now slowly turning in condos and a target and such. For some stupid reason, it is still on the DJI no-fly list. Their customer support has been less than helpful, basically telling me that the limits are there to comply with the law. Having worked for the government before, I have zero hope that the FAA will actually update their no-fly list so that DJI can get it's act together. In the meantime, since it's less than 1/2 mile away from my house, I am stuck with a $1300 paperweight.

What the hell can I do? The Phantom 3 is exactly what I wanted and I would hate to have to return it over something stupid like this, but I'm not going to keep it if I can't fly it in my own friggin back yard. For clarity's sake, I get like 17 GPS sats at all time, so unless their is some way to totally disable the GPS that's no help. (Plus I like having GPS mode for flight points and peace of mind)

Is there a third party app I can use to control the drone? Anything at all? ='(

 

[Apparition]

I think you can cover the outside of the phantom with foil so it can't see gps.

 

[phirephoto]

I think you can cover the outside of the phantom with foil so it can't see gps.

Wouldn't that disable... Oh just about everything else signal related? RTH? And.. especially the whole transmitter thing that allows you to tell the quad to do things like take off, move, land, etc?

 

[macsoft]

outch... Yours is like that one in a million situation that could of happen. but has never predicted.
I guess you can sell your P3, and get a P2V+ and load it with pre-noflyzones firmware and still have lots of fun.

 

[Apparition]

Wouldn't that disable... Oh just about everything else signal related? RTH? And.. especially the whole transmitter thing that allows you to tell the quad to do things like take off, move, land, etc?

Yep, but I think it will allow you to fly with vps. Eric Cheng did it in a YouTube video to show how well the P3 held position with zero sattelites. Not ideal but it allows flight.

 

[CloudsNeverDie]

If you're using Android, send me a PM, I can help.

 

[phirephoto]

Yep, but I think it will allow you to fly with vps. Eric Cheng did it in a YouTube video to show how well the P3 held position with zero sattelites. Not ideal but it allows flight.

Well no, my point is wouldn't the aluminum foil block ALL signals - ie you'd have no connection to the transmitter - ergo no control?

 

[Meta4]

The Lightbridge antennas are in the legs - they'd be fine - just GPS would be blocked.
Eric Cheng made a recent video demonstrating how that works.
But it's not a satisfactory solution for the OP - no-one's going to want to sacrifice all the good things about GPS like RTH and stable flying and seeing where your bird is on the app.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to check in on the DJI forum and make contact with DJI people to find out how to solve the cause of the problem at their end.

 

[phirephoto]

The Lightbridge antennas are in the legs - they'd be fine - just GPS would be blocked.
Eric Cheng made a recent video demonstrating how that works.
But it's not a satisfactory solution for the OP - no-one's going to want to sacrifice all the good things about GPS like RTH and stable flying and seeing where your bird is on the app.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to check in on the DJI forum and make contact with DJI people to find out how to solve the cause of the problem at their end.

Oh.. I sit corrected. That still - to me - is risky to put anything that could potentially block your transmitter signal, especially with no GPS. Good idea on asking DJI

 

[Al Bondigas]

The Lightbridge antennas are in the legs - they'd be fine - just GPS would be blocked.
Eric Cheng made a recent video demonstrating how that works.
But it's not a satisfactory solution for the OP - no-one's going to want to sacrifice all the good things about GPS like RTH and stable flying and seeing where your bird is on the app.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to check in on the DJI forum and make contact with DJI people to find out how to solve the cause of the problem at their end.

I did. They basically said they didn't believe me and if it's on the FAA no-fly list, then they aren't going to question it.