If you are looking to know “how to find a lost drone without a tracker?” you are at the right place. Losing your drone could be a gut-twisting experience. You may not know why, how, and where your drone got lost. If you have a tracker, you are lucky enough to find it. There are so many reasons why you may lose your drone. It can be that you lost your GPS connection. It may also be that the hardware or software of your done acting up. Sometimes you may lose them due to a dead battery too.
In this article, we will discuss a few things to guide you with your lost drone. We will enlighten you on how to find the location of your lost drone, how to get to them without a tracker, and how to make sure you don’t lose them again.
How Do I Find the Location of a Drone?
We have plenty of drone detection technologies to locate drones easily. These technologies will help you locate your lost drones. These technologies help us find based on the drone’s GPS location, the type of drone flying and also the address of the drone, its altitude, and speed as well.
For example, we can detect drones using RF or radio frequency technology. They use an RFID chip to carry out the task. This frequency they use will actually monitor by listening to frequencies ranging from 70 MHz – 6 GHz of communication between the drone operator and the drone.
They also use visual tracking as another form of detection. Where they will use PTZ cameras which have visual records of the drone’s movement, they actually work by connecting the camera to the drone’s GPS. In addition, they also happen to use radar that is of higher resolution. These radars scan the sky to detect unusual movements and changes that are quite similar to drones and birds. Then they compare the signals received with a database to identify what it is and where to locate it.
How to Find a Lost Drone Without a Tracker?
If you happen to lose your drone without a tracker, don’t panic your guts out because we’ve got you covered here. We will give you some easy ideas to find your lost drone without a tracker. Keep reading to find out.
- First things first, don’t switch off your drone’s controller out of fear or confusion. That is the only thing connecting you to the lost drone. When the drone connects to its controller, you will be able to locate it. Next, don’t forget to press the button that says “return to home.” Wait and see if your drone is coming back. You can check whether your drone is traveling back to you on the telemetry of your controller.
- In case your controller isn’t connecting to the lost drone, pack your stuff and move in the direction you lost your drone. You can check the location on your remote-control telemetry. The more your closer to it, the more it will connect to the controller. You can use the DJI app to further track the position on your controller. This app could save the GPS location where your drone was last seen. This is supposed to work only for DJI pilots. But if you are lucky enough, you could try the DJI Go app for your drone and controller as well.
- Once you have reached the location, keep a sharp eye around to scan for any clues on your lost drone. In case the drone has crashed or landed somewhere stuck, there will be a red light flashing with a beeping sound in it. If you don’t hear or see anything, keep trying to rev the drone so you can hear the sound of its blades rotating. Keep trying as long the battery is working.
- Another way to find this is by using the flight logs. This log stores the drone’s flight path. It doesn’t even matter whether the drone or your controller is off. They could still give you the satellite image or map of the terrain as to where it was last seen.
- Another not-so-exciting way is by issuing lost drone posters. If none of the above methods worked for you. You could print some posters in the lost location and post them on some of the main public spots with your details and reward. If you are fortunate enough, you will get to find your drone. This a rare thing, but you could try anyway.
- Otherwise, you could also file a complaint with the police that you lost your drone, with details regarding the last coordinates or the location you lost the connection to it, and ask them to find it for you. Or else some people tend to look for their lost drone in the online market space in case someone might have gotten their hands on it and sold it in the market.
Is there an App to Find My Drone?
Yes, there is an app for it. But this app is designed by DJI drone manufactures for DJI drones. We have the DJI Go drone app, which will help you locate the drone based on saved data on the last location your drone lost its GPS signal. This app has a feature called “find my drone.” This drone flight app could actually point out the pilots as well as the drone’s last location. Doesn’t matter how long the drone is missing. The app supports DJI mini-2, SE, Air S2, FPV, Mavic 3, Mavic Air 2, etc.
Why do Drones Get Lost?
We tend to lose our drones for quite unfortunate reasons. We will give you some of the most frequent reasons as to why;
- A very usual problem many of us pilots face is a drained or damaged batter and console. Sometimes when the battery drains or is dead, it will cause annoying transmission errors forcing the drone to land somewhere impossible to reach.
- The drones have also lost in the greens when it malfunctions mid-air. Malfunctioning enough to get the power cut. What happens is the drone just drops anywhere the next minute; it is out of power. Making it difficult for us to find.
- Sometimes when the drones are flying in between trees and other barriers, their blades may knock onto branches and other barricades, crashing the drone mid-air.
- Sometimes when the drone flies beyond the GPS limits, we tend to lose signal over the drone on the remote control. When this happens, we lose connection and the drone to the jungles.
How to Make Sure you Never Lose your Drone Again?
If you lost your favorite drone and you never want to lose it again, this section of the article is for you so that you don’t lose it again.
- Take all the precautions you need before flying the drone, a backup battery, keep the app on, have the return to home button working, and also make sure the location is fairly familiar to you. So that in case you have lost it, you can still make a quick rescue mission before it’s gone forever.
- Keep your GPS tracker on, especially when there are a lot of risks involved in flying the drones. It could be a little too pricy to make his investment on a tracker but know that it’s definitely worth it.
- Also, keep a keen eye on the weather condition for the day in the area you’re flying the drone. Bad weather, rain or snow storms, strong winds, etc., can crash or malfunction your drone enough to never see it again. In addition to it, always make sure to get a screenshot of the aerial view or the telemetry.
VIDEO CREDITS: Air Photography YouTube Channel
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