Poor connection issues

[Nidge]

it was about 1000 meters away. 350 feet up. Did not lose a physical video image feed but lost total control. When control came back it was frozen for some time. I could see drone moving but not see any change in footage

Some range issues can be region specific. I don’t just mean the difference in power levels but in the way certain parts of the RF spectrum are utilised.

I’m in the UK and for the most part left the connection on CH165 (5.825GHz to 5.845GHz). However one day while testing in my backyard I experienced a loss of connection while the Anafi was only 20ft in the air and about 30ft distant. I have the luxury of owning a USB powered spectrum analyser and when I tuned it to CH165 I saw a very strong non-WiFi signal spread over much of the allocation. Best guess it may have been some type of DVB carrier associated with a nearby video installation. As it wasn’t a typical WiFi signal it would not have appeared on the Freeflight6 network view.
Regards
Nidge.

 

[Flight_Seeing]

I cannot tell from your profile but are you in a country that uses the FCC power levels of WiFi e.g USA and Canada, or in a European country that uses the lower power CE compliant WiFi?

im in the UK.

 

[Liger 1956]

Are you also on the latest versions of FF6 (6.6.6) and latest firmware on the controller and the Anafi?

 

[Flight_Seeing]

Yes fully updated. I was in Flightmode on my phone and had no other devices on me

 

[Liger 1956]

Some members have reported very short control distances in the EU since the recent updates. 1km of range is not too bad for WiFi control at EU legal power although it appears that you were flying in an environment that should not have much traffic on 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz. Did you let the Anafi choose which frequency to use or did you manually choose?

I am surprised that you lost control of the Anafi before you lost the video link and you did well to get it back safely. I would have thought that it would have instigated RTH when it lost the control link.

 

[Flight_Seeing]

Id have it that on first instance it was a good distance. BUT....I was over an estuary with water and sandbanks. I was honestly expecting my drone to never return. Nothing happened it just stopped responding.
I had another test flight yesterday and again lost signal when the drone was directly above me. Same thing - video was showing but not responding, i could see the drone it refused to move. Did not return to home.
for me now its a safety thing and ill be going away from Anafi. They seem to have ballsed something up in latest firmware or build as I said my original bird was amazing

 

[Liger 1956]

A lot of people are waiting for the next update in the (vain?) hope that Parrot will fix all of the bugs and not introduce new ones.

 

[S.C.C.]

... totally lost wifi to my drone no matter what i did it would not respond. I had the warning it would RTH but it didnt even do that.
...Could it be the new FPV body is not as good for wifi/gps??

I have the older version, and yesterday wifi signal went from full, to 1 dot suddenly (I looked at the phone's screen recording at home), and a few seconds later the icon background becomes yellow, and the wifi is connection is lost. I didn't get any warning, neither "poor wifi connection", nor "RTH", only the center top red RTH icon after the autonomous return was activated, and I had to restart the application to get the video feed back, despite the fact that the drone was now hovering a few meters from me and it was responding to the joysticks. (In my case there was a tree inbetween to explain the initial bad connection)

I should have tried to move the controller a bit, up, then down as explained by Agustine, (it was already aligned to the drone's direction), but I was completely lost without any warnings or information... Maybe trying to keep the different angles with the controller for a few seconds would help too, so that it has enough time to scan all wifi frequencies with each new position/angle.

Also I'm still wondering about possible interferences with water ? the signal reflecting on the surface and creating a form of electromagnetic echo/delay that complicate the communication ? A low controller position may worsen the signal in this case. Lots of people flying over water seem to have issues and you can't apparently have a good wifi connection between 2 devices when one is in the water and the other isn't, while you can connect them if both are in or out of water, which could mean that the surface between air and water may create some complications ?

 

[charleslee]

Yep another victim of the 1.6.4

 

[Flight_Seeing]

Yep another victim of the 1.6.4

Ive had a few test flights since. Yesterday I was up a mountain with nothing to cause any signal issues. Mostly the flight was ok - the odd low signal but only one instance of signal loss for a very short amount of time.
i did some testing. It does seem to be affected by the direction of the drone, seems to be better when the front or back of the drone face the controller - if side on its not too happy.
One of my test flights I did a spiral shot. From where i was sat vertically up directly above me. It lost signal and I lost control. I walk away a few meters so the drone is not above me and my signal comes back.
I have tried high ground / moving the controller and ive also got a second controller with an Alientech mod - makes no difference.

my other issue is the stability of the gimbal / horizon.
i noticed on my first flight the horizon was off. I landed, calibrated the camera and altered the horizon in app to -1°. All looked good.
off i go to fly.
Ive looked over my footage today - look at the horizon in the image - it drops on the left.
This changes as the footage moves. As I pan left it does improve. When the drone is stationery the image stabilises and slowly the horizon corrects itself. As soon as the drone moves it returns to being wonky.
This is my second drone to suffer this.
no wind at all when flying

Seems their firmware needs an overhaul.
but massive bonus - i flew for 23 1/2 mins and RTH at 12% battery. The flying time is awesome

 

[d95gas]

Might be time to breakout the tinfoil tray and try that trick. There was a couple of guys on the forum used it as a backing plane for the antenna and got some significant distance with it. Might have looked crazy and very "Heath Robinson" but it seemed to do the trick for them.

 

[Flight_Seeing]

Might be time to breakout the tinfoil tray and try that trick. There was a couple of guys on the forum used it as a backing plane for the antenna and got some significant distance with it. Might have looked crazy and very "Heath Robinson" but it seemed to do the trick for them.

ive considered this yes. I was hoping the alientech mod would help - its rewired the controller allowing me to put external high gain whip aerials on the controller. It was great for my old drone as i keep saying. Seems no different on this one though

i had read that Parrot were updating their wifi to help cut out interference. Might they have made a slight mess of the rework?

 

[Ana789]

[...]

I’m in the UK and for the most part left the connection on CH165 (5.825GHz to 5.845GHz). However one day while testing in my backyard I experienced a loss of connection while the Anafi was only 20ft in the air and about 30ft distant. I have the luxury of owning a USB powered spectrum analyser and when I tuned it to CH165 I saw a very strong non-WiFi signal spread over much of the allocation. [...]

I remember that I have read something, connected to my DJI Spark, that the 5.8GHz band is, in some areas/countries in the world, used for radar reasons.
And "low range devices" (drones ;-) are only permitted to use them, when they are be able to switch channels, if the band is in use and therefor needed.
Which, in manual mode, may not happening.
Which would assumingly violate the legallity of our birds, then.


Anyone knows from own experience how "good" the anafi is, in switching bands and channels, if in auto mode?

 

[Nidge]

I remember that I have read something, connected to my DJI Spark, that the 5.8GHz band is, in some areas/countries in the world, used for radar reasons.
And "low range devices" (drones ;-) are only permitted to use them, when they are be able to switch channels, if the band is in use and therefor needed.
Which, in manual mode, may not happening.
Which would assumingly violate the legallity of our birds, then.


Anyone knows from own experience how "good" the anafi is, in switching bands and channels, if in auto mode?

One useful little bit of kit is a cheap UVC/OTG FPV receiver. These cover the whole 5GHz SRD (short range devices) allocation, and even though they are intended to receive analog video they have a basic spectrum analyser which can show other signals and interference on the band.

Another piece of kit I use, but not cheap, is a Hack RF One software defined transceiver. This covers 1MHz to 6GHz, but will work from 5KHz to 10GHz with reduced performance. As it’s a transceiver, meaning it receives and transmits, it’s handy for testing some drone technology as it can spoof GPS signals and the control link amongst other things.

Regards

Nidge.