genuine question because ive heard a lot of conflicting stuff about this. some people say power lines are basically death zones for rc signal, others say as long as youre not directly under them youre fine. i flew maybe 150 meters lateral from a set of high voltage transmission lines last weekend and noticed my rssi was noticeably lower than usual, dropped from around -65 to like -78 dbm at the same distance from me ive flown before in cleaner areas. nothing disconnected but it felt sketchier than normal.

is that kind of drop actually significant or am i just being paranoid after reading too many crash threads. and does the voltage rating of the lines matter, like is 110kv substantially worse than standard distribution lines you see everywhere. genuinely dont know enough about the RF side of things to know if my concern is warranted here.

yeah the voltage absolutely matters. transmission lines running at high voltage generate a lot of electromagnetic noise across a pretty wide frequency range and that noise floor rising is exactly what drags your rssi down even without any direct obstruction. -78 at normal range is not catastrophic but its not great either, your link budget is thinner and if you hit any additional interference you dont have much headroom left. i generally try to keep at least 200-300 meters from anything over like 69kv if i can help it. standard neighborhood distribution stuff is usually fine unless youre right on top of a substation.

tbh i've flown near transmission lines a bunch and never had a full disconnect, but i also fly fpv with crossfire so the link is pretty robust. if youre on the stock dji controller that rssi drop would worry me more just because the built in antennas are pretty average. probably fine but id keep the flight short and stay in a position where you can get RTH going quick if it degrades further. the lines arent going to like hijack your signal or anything dramatic, its more just the noise floor situation like the other guy said