Today in a square in my city, Curitiba (Brazil), was flying at low altitude and I had several messages about satellite loss, I have the Android app version 1.15.0 and firmware 1.3.0100, here are the prints.
Sattelite loss
- Thread starter Adembar
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Anzacjack
Well-Known Member
the satellite retention is an issue with the NEO. I believe this may be due to a smaller GPS antenna. In amongst those tall buildings your line of sight to satellites will be sketchy at best
Chrislaf
Well-Known Member
My NEO takes a long time to acquire satellites, much longer than my Mavic 3 Pro or Mini 3 Pro. I usually take off anyway and once aloft enough satellites are acquired and the home point is set.
I frequently lose satellites when walking or biking through bush trails, but so far it hasn’t been a problem as the NEO is low and able to use VPS until it re-acquires enough satellites.
Chris
I frequently lose satellites when walking or biking through bush trails, but so far it hasn’t been a problem as the NEO is low and able to use VPS until it re-acquires enough satellites.
Chris
But it also occurred to me that these stickers (reflective silver tapes) to scare away birds, may be affecting the antenna reception, I sent an email with these photos to DJI asking their technicians, as soon as I get a response I will comment. I will also remove these tapes and return to the same place and do another test.
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I fly with goggles, so for me is not interesting having satelites. I use alu foil to block GPS and VPS to turn on ATTI mode to have some speed, since the drone is painfully slow.
This guy uses red reflective tape against birds and seems to work. Try this, this may let the GPS signal thru.
DJI's response to the email I sent the question:
Ademar, good morning!
It depends on the material of the tape, but it may not be the tape in this case.
GerdS
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These reflective tapes are electrically conductive and therefore are blocking GPS signals. I have measured with a multimeter for proof. And the Neo has a quite weak GPS receiver which is no standard one as with their other drones, but a self-nade one for saving some dollars. Same applies to the GPS antenna.
So, avoid attaching anything at the Neo's top side.
I don't know, but I suspect that when it's following, GPS isn't needed so loss and re-aquisition of a fix is ignored.
In fact I'd bet GPS is ignored entirely for palm-control flight, maybe manual phone flight too.
That's a very interesting idea, I might try it...
Since you don't have GPS or VPS, you're not getting any speed or distance telemetry, right? What's your best guess at the top speed you're getting?
And functionally, how does this differ from FPV manual mode? There's no positioning, but you do still get telemetry.
Yes. You have no speed and distance. The barometer works, you get hight.
The drone becomes very snappy and feels like an alti hold FPV drone. I use this at home to prevent the drone switching back and forth. I'm seasoned pilot, so for me it's better like this. A little FPV feeling...
As I told my friends, my NEO is in DJI technical support, but today I remembered another flight that worried me because I suddenly lost control and it flew of its own accord, entering ATTI without satellite signal. It was difficult to recover it manually at that time, but I managed to land at the place where I took off (it's the X in the photo). But analyzing the Airdata I realized that I was only able to recover control when it obtained satellites and analyzing this log, I realized that if I had activated RTH it would have landed on top of that building (see sticker) because that was where it registered the RTH via satellite. So with this analysis I believe it reinforces the idea that there must be a problem with the antenna. When it returns from the support, I will fly again in these two locations to check if they solved the problem and it no longer presents loss of satellites in those locations or if it will still persist in the same errors in these two locations, then I can conclude: "it came back fixed" or if it remains in the error I will conclude that "it is a DNA defect". I've already noticed from the mail tracking that the NEO has already arrived at its destination, now I just have to be patient and wait for a response from the support team. Forgive me for joking, but I'm feeling like a "pregnant woman" while I wait.
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ryguy80
Well-Known Member
The few flights I’ve had on mine, the number of acquired satellites seems to fluctuate quite a bit. I’ll start off with 15, then jumps to 20, then might go back to 12 or 13. Maybe something with the signal to noise ratio? I did launch it next to the house, so not sure if that plays a role, but I don’t see the number of satellites jumping around so much on my other DJI drones from a similar launch point.
If you tape down the IR sensors too, it becomes full manual mode and won´t hold altitude either. But this is not for noobs. Very easy to crash. These are old school DJI tricks, worked on all DJI drones.
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To be clear, full "manual" in the FPV world means "rate mode" stick behavior, which is very different than Angle Mode.
In Rate Mode, stick deflection is proportional to the rate at which the drone pitches or rolls. Hold the stick off-center and it will continue to rotate. Exactly how yaw always works.
In Angle Mode pitch/roll stick deflection sets an attack angle proportional to stick deflection, some max tilt at full stick.
Rate Mode can only be activated with the FPV3 stick controller, switching the N/S/M switch to manual, a setting not available on any regular controller.
Trust me, if you've never flown in Rate (manual) mode, You'd know it right away, and without exception crash immediately
That's why I use fpv simulator with fpv controllersTo be clear, full "manual" in the FPV world means "rate mode" stick behavior, which is very different than Angle Mode.
In Rate Mode, stick deflection is proportional to the rate at which the drone pitches or rolls. Hold the stick off-center and it will continue to rotate. Exactly how yaw always works.
In Angle Mode pitch/roll stick deflection sets an attack angle proportional to stick deflection, some max tilt at full stick.
Rate Mode can only be activated with the FPV3 stick controller, switching the N/S/M switch to manual, a setting not available on any regular controller.
Trust me, if you've never flown in Rate (manual) mode, You'd know it right away, and without exception crash immediately
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What I'm unclear on is your use of "manual" for the behavior when you defeat GPS and VPS on the Neo. Are you saying when you do this it flies in Rate Mode?
I'm skeptical. It would be the first DJI drone to do this, ever.
