Radio Problem near a Walmart

[potluckman]

Was attempting to take photos of land I own near a Walmart (about 1/4 mile) and also a Hospital to
the South about 2000 feet. Remote indicated poor radio quality and once aloft the P4 would not hold
position. Would slowly drift up or down by hundreds of feet and once nearly into the ground. I drove back
to my other property in county and everything worked fine and no Poor Radio Quality indicator.

I am wondering if either the hospital, Walmart, or both have some type of high power wifi that would
cause interference. At my home site I have a wide area wifi unit mounted on our roof and have never
had a problem.

Lenny

 

[wa5tef]

Lenny, that's interesting! I fly my Phantom 4 up to check my ham radio antennas plus my wifi 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz directional antennas that I use for my wireless internet business. I have flown right up the front of these antennas to photo them and no interference noted ever. The 5.8 GHz antenna is a sealed dish antenna with about 24 dbi gain and it of course does not bother the 2.4 GHz systems. I also have a fairly large Linksys wifi inhouse router and have started my drone up on the floor in the same room also with no problems. If I had to guess I'd say that the interference might be coming from either place but more likely the closest one. I notice a certain named of local banks and their branches frequently interfere with my 145.49 MHz ham receiver/transmitter installed in my truck so it could very well be something similar. Ask them to pull their main breaker and see if it clears up!

Good luck,
Jim
WA5TEF

 

[potluckman]

Lenny, that's interesting! I fly my Phantom 4 up to check my ham radio antennas plus my wifi 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz directional antennas that I use for my wireless internet business. I have flown right up the front of these antennas to photo them and no interference noted ever. The 5.8 GHz antenna is a sealed dish antenna with about 24 dbi gain and it of course does not bother the 2.4 GHz systems. I also have a fairly large Linksys wifi inhouse router and have started my drone up on the floor in the same room also with no problems. If I had to guess I'd say that the interference might be coming from either place but more likely the closest one. I notice a certain named of local banks and their branches frequently interfere with my 145.49 MHz ham receiver/transmitter installed in my truck so it could very well be something similar. Ask them to pull their main breaker and see if it clears up!

Good luck,
Jim
WA5TEF

Thanks Jim I tend to feel the same way as this is first time I have had any problem with the bird and I have had it for about a year. I only got one photo as I was to busy fighting to keep the thing in the air. I did notice that the problem got somewhat worse when I moved to second location which was about 500 foot closer to Walmart and slightly further away from the Hospital. They are
all I can think of as this is in a small town with not much around.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Use a wifi app on phone that has a visual strength meter look. See when getting closer to it if the bars/graph spike.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

How far apart are the properties from each other? More than 100 miles?

 

[Meta4]

Remote indicated poor radio quality and once aloft the P4 would not hold
position. Would slowly drift up or down by hundreds of feet and once nearly into the ground.

Radio interference is not unexpected when you fly in an urban area and a Walmart or a hospital would have lots of equipmemt that would cause interference.
But neither should do anything that would cause the Phantom to drift up and down.
To work out what might be the cause of that, you'd need to look into the recorded flight data.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides.

 

[potluckman]

Use a wifi app on phone that has a visual strength meter look. See when getting closer to it if the bars/graph spike.

Good idea and I already have a wifi tracer on my phone.