Flying in another country

[so low still grounded]

So what I have read is that the GPS is received by the vehicle and the contoller which uses the tablet as a medium so the answer is no then. correct?

Hi I have only flown a few times and bearely know what I am doing.
In fact have no idea. When I fly near my house is my tablet getting
GPS from....? My tablet has no sim card. So if I go to another country do I need to get a local sim card to get GPS.

 

[so low still grounded]

So what I have read is that the GPS is received by the vehicle and the contoller which uses the tablet as a medium so the answer is no then. correct?

 

[jimloss]

The Solo has its own GPS that will work anywhere that there are enough satellites in view from the Solo's viewpoint.

GPS on phone/tablet not needed, unless perhaps you change Return to Home settings to return to you instead of the Launch Point.

No SIM card needed for GPS to work. Internet access is only required to access maps, but most Solo pilots do not need maps as they will use the Live View from the Gopro instead of viewing position of Solo on the map.

Be careful when using Solo near trees or structures as the view of GPS satellites can be blocked. When good GPS signal is lost, your Solo will switch to Fly:Manual and then notify you that it has done so. You will have to know how to fly in this mode. Until you learn to fly in Fly:Manual, stay far away from trees and structures - I would suggest a minimum of 150' from any of them.

 

[so low still grounded]

Ok sorted yes will need SIM for planar data from network the grid data is GPS.

 

[so low still grounded]

Thanks so much Jim loss. This is all very new to me although I have been filming for years professionaly
This is a new field which I hope to master as the images give a whole different perspective , especially establishing shots. Was always afraid as it looked too complicated but solo simplifies things and makes
The focus the images and not flying....right up my alley.

 

[iFLIP07]

Hello guys I'm new to the site and I just got my new Solo a few days ago!

I love this thing so far but I read online that people are upgrading their GPS in their Solo for better GPS lock and all that stuff Im clueless about.

Anyways, I bought this drone because I just love flying things but I also want to take this to Southeast-Asia(Philippines) and I THINK I read somewhere that it might not get any GPS there? I heard that Solo needs to connect to Chinese satellite which I think the stock GPS doesn't do or something like that.

So yeah everything I wrote here was just out of memory so I am not sure but I guess my question is.... when I go to the Philippines to fly my Solo, should I upgrade its GPS? what else do you suggest I do before I take it there.

 

[andrew.baker.142]

The US GPS constellation covers the whole world. If it is working fine for you in the US it will work fine elsewhere.
I would recommend you pre-download the maps of the area you hope to fly, but not really necessary.

 

[iFLIP07]

The US GPS constellation covers the whole world. If it is working fine for you in the US it will work fine elsewhere.
I would recommend you pre-download the maps of the area you hope to fly, but not really necessary.

When you said US... does that cover Canada as well? lol sorry I need to be 100% sure.

And so if the stock GPS is enough how come people are still upgrading theirs? for what reason exactly? and by the way I am only getting like 9satts where Im from Im not sure if its good or not.

 

[andrew.baker.142]

The poor performance of the stock GPS is due primarily to poor noise rejection of the chipset on the Rev A GPS. The Rev B is a little better (so I hear), but should be perfectly acceptable if you do the 'cardboard mod'. I've done all of mine and it really helps. Adding the 'cardboard' spacer helps isolate electrical noise better than if the copper is touching the back of the GPS. I used a 3D printed spacer instead of cardboard but it does the same thing.
3DR is now selling the V2 shield which I'm told works better. I have two still in the envelope since my Rev A copters are working OK. I did upgrade one copter to the mRo M8N and one the Here GPS (which also uses the M8N chipset) mainly for better reliability and tighter position accuracy since I'm also using my copters for mapping.
Remember, the 'G' in GPS is Global, and is designed by the military to work anywhere in the world. The advantage of the M8N chipset is it can also receive other nation's GPS constellations so there are more satellites within view at any one time which should lead to better reliability and accuracy.

 

[iFLIP07]

The poor performance of the stock GPS is due primarily to poor noise rejection of the chipset on the Rev A GPS. The Rev B is a little better (so I hear), but should be perfectly acceptable if you do the 'cardboard mod'. I've done all of mine and it really helps. Adding the 'cardboard' spacer helps isolate electrical noise better than if the copper is touching the back of the GPS. I used a 3D printed spacer instead of cardboard but it does the same thing.
3DR is now selling the V2 shield which I'm told works better. I have two still in the envelope since my Rev A copters are working OK. I did upgrade one copter to the mRo M8N and one the Here GPS (which also uses the M8N chipset) mainly for better reliability and tighter position accuracy since I'm also using my copters for mapping.
Remember, the 'G' in GPS is Global, and is designed by the military to work anywhere in the world. The advantage of the M8N chipset is it can also receive other nation's GPS constellations so there are more satellites within view at any one time which should lead to better reliability and accuracy.

This is very helpful thank you so much!