Controller Signal-Strength

[50wyldeman]

This thread has been a ton of useful information , sadly it also shows me that I am a true Neophyte in the RC terminology, I have had my Solo since last Thursday, after reading everything here I decided to await my maiden voyage until my FPVLR antenna arrives, I have a ton of questions but think much of it is answered here in this thread. I would very much like to thank the OP for her post as it has benefited me greatly.
I will be attempting my first flight it seems on Friday , possibly Thursday.
Thank you all for the info , this site is a great resource.

 

[rrmccabe]

mmccabe,
Please check my math.
If the Solo/controller have a transmit power of 10 mW or 10 dBm( as I have heard) and the rubber duck antenna has a gain of 2 dBi we get an EIRP of 12 dBm.
I think the U.S. 2.4 gHz ISM EIRP limit is 36 dBm, EU limit of 20 dBm.
That gives an actual to limit difference of 24dB which would have a significant impact on range and interference susceptibility.
Thoughts?

73

Sounds about right to me.

And 73 from KD0ZV

 

[Jubalr]

Sounds about right to me.

And 73 from KD0ZV

73s to you both..KK4YLD

 

[segdohbird]

Sounds to me, after reading through this thread, 3DR has a lots of esplainn' to do..

 

[Rich]

The wifi cards are mini PCIe. The stock card is based on the Atheros AR9382 chip and the new cards that I'm using are based on the Atheros AR9582. The Solo is using the ath9k driver which appears to support a wide range of Atheros chip sets. I did notice code in the Solo looks like it may limit the card to 500mw output (or 27dbm), but I'm not positive on that. I should be able to override that from the command line if that's the case. In time i'll know after i do more tinkering.

It's nice to hear they used mini pcie! Sweet!

Please post some pics and details in a separate thread.

73

 

[ChrisM101]

Im pretty sure the default RTH is set at 140 or 150 alt.

 

[rrmccabe]

Im pretty sure the default RTH is set at 140 or 150 alt.

49'

 

[Rich]

As some of you may know, I had a loss of controller signal very close to me (about 40 ft). There was nothing between me and the Solo, so there never should have been a signal loss.

I tried again to get some guidelines from 3DR on how to figure out if an area is safe to fly.

I sent an email to my 3DR support contact asking how to evaluate the WiFI environment to know when it's safe to fly.

I know the Solo (bird in the air) will see a different WiFi environment than the controller (on the ground), but there must be some way to evaluate the environment to know if we will see issues or not.

I'm referring to interference here, not RF radio range.

I was surprised the other day, flying in what appeared to be an open field, not very close to buildings, there was a VERY strong WiFi signal. Come to find out it had the name of my friend on it (we used his car to drive to this field). He wasn't even aware that his car had a hot spot in it (not to mention that the hot spot SSID was his name!). We checked his vehical's menus and couldn't find a way to disable the WiFi hot spot in it. Luckily it seemed to turn itself off a couple of minutes after the car was shut off (it was a 2015 Chevy mini SUV).

So if the Solo is susceptible to WiFi interference, we certainly can't stop random cards from driving up, or someone showing up that has their phone in their pocket in a 'hot spot enabled' mode.

Perhaps 3DR can put a WiFi scanner into the controller to provide us with some sort of visibility into how crowded the WiFi environment is in the area to be flown? Or, they need to make the controller to Solo signal more robust and less susceptible to loss of signal?

FYI: I lost controller signal once when my Solo was VERY close to me (about 30 feet up / 30 feet out). Luckily it hasn't happened again, but I haven't flown it much since this loss of control happened.

I finally got my answer from 3DR. Here is how they say to tell if it's safe to fly:

Please read the Solo manual, specifically section 3: Safety:
http://3drobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Version2_6_16.pdf

Follow these guidelines for flying:
http://3drobotics.com/kb/preflight-checklist-solo/

What you are looking for is the least possible WiFi signals as possible, which is why we recommend flying in a large open space.

Ok, there was nothing new or useful there, but to repeat, the 3DR preflight checklist says:

4) Interfering Wi-Fi networks

Stay clear of crowded Wi-Fi environments. If you are in an area with many different Wi-Fi networks your connection to Solo will not be as reliable. Also, things like telephone poles and cell towers will cause Wi-Fi interference, so make sure that you are clear of these as well.

So there is not much to go on there, except to expect that other WiFI signals can interfere with the Solo.

Me thinks that 3DR better make the Solo less susceptible to other WiFi signals, or include a WiFi Scanner APP on the controller to warn users that potential interference may exist before a flight starts or more people will have issues.

Heck, these days many cars have built in WiFi hot spots, so we can almost never find a place with NO nearby strong WiFi signals. But the question is what is 'too many' when they say 'many different WiFi networks'?

 

[rrmccabe]

Thanks for info. Can't say I like 3DRs response. Half of their reply was legal BS but there is no reason they cant work around WiFi. They have to as its everywhere .

Besides these things are not a RC device you take to a flying field and fly. They are marketed to be flying cameras.

 

[ChrisM101]

Maybe I should reset mine. Still in an urban area, but a different location, today I was losing connectivity at about five hundred feet out. The app icon turned red, the controller displayed one bar, and RSSI got to 72. It's an equipment issue. Hopefully, better antennae will do the trick.

Sarah you should still be able to fly with one bar and 72 rssi. Ive flown 1.2 miles on stock and thats no bars and rssi between 84-90.

Antenna down and out.

 

[Sarah B]

Antennae are down and out. I mainly fly around a university, with fenced sports fields nearby, and I'm chicken to push the envelope too much and potentially have the solo do a RTH and strike something.

I haven't been in a field large enough to experiment with RTH, yet, and want to make certain everything performs as advertised before taking the risk. I just received an FPVLR antenna, and will see if it indeed makes a difference.

 

[50wyldeman]

Sorry for the image size ( <<<<<newb) however I just received my FPVLR.com antenna, maiden voyage will be later today if weather ( windy atm) permits. I am very nervous I have zero stick time so it should be interesting I bought the solo for a few reasons and will make a post about that elsewhere where I am not stepping on Sara B's thread just thought I would show the nice job the FPVLR guys do . thanks if the pic is to extreme size wise let me know !

 

[ChrisM101]

Antennae are down and out. I mainly fly around a university, with fenced sports fields nearby, and I'm chicken to push the envelope too much and potentially have the solo do a RTH and strike something.

I haven't been in a field large enough to experiment with RTH, yet, and want to make certain everything performs as advertised before taking the risk. I just received an FPVLR antenna, and will see if it indeed makes a difference.

Flying at a university means you are likely in a huge wifi whirlpool. thats the problem theres large hotspots broadcasting in the stadiums and dorms and campus areas, you cannot compete with the wifi congestion.

Go anywhere else and fly you will see far better results im sure.

 

[rrmccabe]

I haven't been in a field large enough to experiment with RTH, yet, and want to make certain everything performs as advertised before taking the risk. I just received an FPVLR antenna, and will see if it indeed makes a difference.

I would use tower to up your RTH height to a couple hundred feet. Take the Solo out and hit the return to home button a few times and watch what it does. You can hit Fly at any time to put it back in fly mode.

This will build confidence.

I personally dont think anyone should be flying their solo with the default 49' RTH height.

 

[Rich]

It seems that 3DR is more worried about a congested WiFi environment, than they are with strong nearby WiFi signals.

I wish they would give us some better guidelines. Heck my 2.4 GHz RC equipment has never had an issue flying with a congested WiFi environment. I would expect the Solo to do better than that as it's newer technology than the RC protocols.

 

[Rich]

Sorry for the image size ( <<<<<newb) however I just received my FPVLR.com antenna, maiden voyage will be later today if weather ( windy atm) permits. I am very nervous I have zero stick time so it should be interesting I bought the solo for a few reasons and will make a post about that elsewhere where I am not stepping on Sara B's thread just thought I would show the nice job the FPVLR guys do . thanks if the pic is to extreme size wise let me know !

Are these circularly polarized or linear polarized antennas?

They look circular polarized, which means you should have a circular polarized antenna on the Solo for maximum range.

EDIT: I checked their website and the description is:
"This array of circular polarized half sphere helix antennas of 9dbi gain, and 76 degrees beamwidth was designed to give your “SOLO” 3x its stock range."

So if we can get a circular antenna on the Solo, the range should even be better!

 

[rrmccabe]

Are these circularly polarized or linear polarized antennas?

They look circular polarized, which means you should have a circular polarized antenna on the Solo for maximum range.

This is true. They are circular helix antennas but they work well with vertically polarized antenna's on the bird. I have personal experience with his antennas so can speak from experience.

He sells LHCP antennas for the bird side on the DJI stuff but don't think he offers it for the Solo yet.

 

[Scott]

3DR needs to improve signal strength for better distance!

 

[ProStock]

i was trying to find a way to change the country inside solo since i imported from USA
i didn't try this yet but there's alot about host .conf's inside root/etc/

 

[rrmccabe]

I saw this on the hack site. However it does not look like it increases anything in the 2.4 ghz range. Only 5.8