Phantom 3 bad range

[Jsmith2211]

Hello,

So i am having trouble getting past about 180m on my p3 standard. I bought a range extender ARGtek one, which got me up a whole 30m!! but i think the problem is droneside. i dont mind taking it to bits and fiddling if need be, but i just need to know what is broken. Ive seen stuff about firmware being the issue? is there a way to fix this?

Thanks

James

 

[Jsmith2211]

The problem seems to get worse when facing away from me, when she turns towards me the signal gets better.

 

[dirkclod]

Welcome to the forum
You leave out a lot of info for anyone to help you. Are you aiming your
controller antennas correctly. Are you flying in LOS, like nothing between you and your drone. Are you in FCC or CE.
A little more info would help.

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Relink the remote and drone might help signal,yip p3s almost needs remote aimed at drone ,mine was bad to,triple argtec antennas now which gets me just over 1000mtrs,,its enough for the p3 ,,,some are awsome some are rubbish,,panel mods seem to be the way

 

[Billie Nelson]

Hello Ianzone. I have the ArgTek, but haven't yet tried the panel antennae because I assumed the omni-directional whip antennae would get me better range than the flat-panel variants supplied in the box.

Standing atop a 40-foot water tower, my range currently maxes out at about 3,000 feet using only the supplied omni-directional antennae for both the incoming 2.4GHz video signal, and the outgoing 5.8GHz control signal.

May I ask which configuration of antenna produced the greatest range gains, in your experience ?

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Hello Ianzone. I have the ArgTek, but haven't yet tried the panel antennae because I assumed the omni-directional whip antennae would get me better range than the flat-panel variants supplied in the box.

Standing atop a 40-foot water tower, my range currently maxes out at about 3,000 feet using only the supplied omni-directional antennae for both the incoming 2.4GHz video signal, and the outgoing 5.8GHz control signal.

May I ask which configuration of antenna produced the greatest range gains, in your experience ?

Sorry I have only try the argtec ,the set came with 5 bits,,2 long 2.4 anttennas and 1 5.8 antenna and 2. 7dbi gain panels with dont even think they worked so just have the triple antenna now,,most seem to use the itelite panels which I get one day because me p4 has one ,never done long flight due to airports but even at over 1km the signal and transmission is solid,,I'm pretty carefull now days and wont try no sunset runs due to risks,wish I was in the middle of no where to stretch some legs

 

[dirkclod]

This is going OT and sorry but going to say this. When we were doing range test with all the antennas on the Standard i had been trying for awhile with the P2V. Now there are many threads in this section way back on this and we were getting at the time really good distances with several antennas. Some amped them but i never did. It's more than just the antenna that gets you distance than what antenna you use but the manner in how you aim.
The farther away you get the more critical any movement of you TX is.
Don't have time at the moment to go deep in it but it is all in here if you search.I will show you what i think worked best from all i learned from other members and my test with these pictures.
P2V-V3,Stantard and P3 4K- all modded with Inspire tablet holders as i used a Mini then
instead of a phone.

Now i went even further than just modding the TX i did the bird also.
View media item 832Now i tried several different types of antennas on the bird and found the dipoles worked the best for me where i am at.
I don't have these birds no more as i started with the Mavic's and saw it would go 4.2 miles right out of the box.
But now let's try and see if we can't get the OP's issue figured out.

 

[Jsmith2211]

it is the CE version. Aerials pointed different ways didnt make too much difference, what seemed to help the most was turning the drone to face me. (then flying backwards away from me). Was in line of sight.

 

[Jsmith2211]

i also tried relinking the remote to the drone but it made no improvement

 

[dirkclod]

Are you flying it in the same spot or is it like this wherever you try.

 

[Jsmith2211]

Are you flying it in the same spot or is it like this wherever you try.

flying it on my farm

 

[dirkclod]

flying it on my farm

Try from another spot , maybe there is some interference from where you are flying from or have you tried that already.

 

[Billie Nelson]

This is going OT and sorry but going to say this. When we were doing range test with all the antennas on the Standard i had been trying for awhile with the P2V. Now there are many threads in this section way back on this and we were getting at the time really good distances with several antennas. Some amped them but i never did. It's more than just the antenna that gets you distance than what antenna you use but the manner in how you aim.
The farther away you get the more critical any movement of you TX is.
Don't have time at the moment to go deep in it but it is all in here if you search.I will show you what i think worked best from all i learned from other members and my test with these pictures.
P2V-V3,Stantard and P3 4K- all modded with Inspire tablet holders as i used a Mini then
instead of a phone.
View attachment 120120
Now i went even further than just modding the TX i did the bird also.
View media item 832Now i tried several different types of antennas on the bird and found the dipoles worked the best for me where i am at.
I don't have these birds no more as i started with the Mavic's and saw it would go 4.2 miles right out of the box.
But now let's try and see if we can't get the OP's issue figured out.

Wow, these are some impressive antenna conversions you devised. Once the antenna connections are brought out of the controller housing, a whole spectrum of antenna alternatives become possible via those RP-SMA connectors.

I just got done testing out the flat panels that came with the ArgTek antenna conversion kit, and the difference in reception between the flat panels, and the long whip antennae on the incoming 2.4GHz video, was night and day.

Right out of the box, I initially installed only the ArgTek whip antenna on the dual 2.4GHz connectors for the incoming video signal, while affixing the third longer-than-stock Argtek whip antenna on the outgoing 5.8GHz connector, meaning I used NONE of the supplied ArgTek flat panel antennae.

I noticed some decent range gains over stock, by going with the whip antenna for all three Argtek antennae connections, and so it was only today that I finally got around to range-testing those ArgTek flat-panel antennae for the first time on both 2.4GHz connectors, only to obtain abysmal range in comparison to the whip antenna, which I have now re-installed.

Based on this simple range test, therefore, the ArgTek whip antenna produces way better range figures that are possible with the supplied ArgTek flat panel antenna, for the Phantom 3 Standard. While the flat panel antennae may well work well for other drones, they certainly don't make the grade for the Phantom 3 Standard controller, for which they yielded even shorter signal range than is possible with the bone-stock RC controller.

 

[cheddarman]

Anybody tried high gain antennas like Yargi arrays or Helical? At such high frequencies they wouldn't be very big and would give more directional control of where the power was going.
Just a thought.

 

[Billie Nelson]

There is a guy in Japan who goes by the handle of AioloSimport, who has tried out various alternative antenna types on the Fimi X8 drone, which operates on the 5.8GHz band.

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Since the Phantom 3 Standard also uses 5.8GHz for the outgoing control signal, along with dual 2.4GHz antennae for the incoming video link, it is likely that some decent signal range improvements can be achievable for the Phantom 3S with those exotic antenna configurations, once external RP-SMA connections are added to the controller, as is done for the ArgTek antenna upgrade kit that is available for several Phantom models including the 3S.