In the northeastern Estonian county of Ida-Viru, interference in the transmission of global positioning system (GPS) signals has been observed for several years, and this is interfering with the drones, whose main task is to detect forest fires in time, writes ERR News.
This week, large-scale forest fires broke out in Ida-Viru county, about 30 kilometers from the Russian border. The operators of the rescue service’s drones, who participated in extinguishing the fires, encountered GPS interference, which did not allow them to raise the drones to the required height. In some cases, the drones managed to rise only to a height of 35 meters.
However, the field commander of the rescue service Pavel Leontyev told the program “Aktuaalne kaamera” that the situation has improved for a while. While the firefighting teams were able to lift the drones to a height of 30-35 meters for the first two days, on the 8th of May they managed to reach a height of 60 meters, and the drone could be controlled at a distance of 200 meters.
GPS interference became noticeable in northeastern Estonia three years ago.
The Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PBA) said that since then, interference has been observed almost daily.
Professional drone pilot Dmitry Shutov said that the interference mainly affects simpler four-propeller drones, including those used for hobbies. He recommended responding immediately to problems and landing the drone, or not taking it into the air at all, if GPS interference is detected. Shutov added that general-purpose drones are particularly sensitive to signal changes, so if there is no signal, they should not be flown.
PPA spokesman Janek Talistu said that there was a time when the number of amateur drone users decreased, but now it has started to increase again. In cases where a user experiences GPS signal interference, they should call the emergency number 112.
The Frequency Management Department of the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Supervision Bureau confirmed that GPS signal interference is most pronounced in the northeast of the country, near the Russian border. Similar problems have also been observed in the southeast of Estonia, where the population density is lower. The interference tends to be stronger at night and in warmer weather.
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