REFERENCE
What actually flies, and what it takes to see it.
Drones do not announce themselves in one way. They use several different kinds of radio link, and each one requires something different from a receiver. This page shows what a WarDragon kit covers, then describes the signal classes behind that coverage, what flies on each, and what an instrument has to do to detect them.
What a WarDragon kit covers
| Signal | Pro | Elite |
|---|---|---|
| Remote ID Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes |
| Remote ID Bluetooth | Yes | Yes |
| OcuSync 2/3 | Detect + decode | Detect + decode |
| OcuSync 4 | Detect (decode with DragonScope) | Detect (decode with DragonScope) |
| Analog FPV | — | Yes |
| RFD900/MAVLink | — | Yes |
| mLRS | — | Active development |
| ELRS | — | Planned |
| No RF | Not RF-detectable | Not RF-detectable |
Pro and Elite share the same Remote ID and OcuSync coverage. Elite adds a second software-defined radio, fitted at manufacture, that covers analog FPV video and telemetry and control links. Resolving an encrypted OcuSync 4 flight to a serial number requires the DragonScope service; without it, the flight is still detected and correlated.
The eight signal classes
Nothing here is specific to any manufacturer. The classes below are a property of how aircraft are built and flown, not of any product that watches for them. The last one is the class no radio receiver can see, including ours.
| Signal class | What flies on it | What a receiver has to do |
|---|---|---|
| Remote ID broadcast | Commercially manufactured aircraft flown in compliance with the rules | Receive Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and parse a published message format. The aircraft is cooperating, so this is the least demanding class. |
| Commercial control downlink | Consumer and professional aircraft from the dominant manufacturer, including flights with Remote ID absent or disabled | Identify a proprietary control and video protocol in the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands. Newer implementations are encrypted, which separates detecting a flight from identifying the airframe. |
| Wi-Fi and Bluetooth control | Lower-cost and toy-class aircraft controlled from a phone or tablet | Distinguish an aircraft control session from ordinary consumer traffic on the same crowded bands. |
| Open control links | Hand-built and long-range aircraft using open-source radio control systems | Demodulate open protocols across several bands. These are documented, but they are not Wi-Fi and a Remote ID receiver will not see them. |
| Analog FPV video | Racing and hand-built first-person-view aircraft | Detect analog video carriers, typically in the 5 GHz race bands. There is no identifier in the signal at all — the presence of the carrier is the detection. |
| Digital FPV video | Newer first-person-view aircraft using digital video systems | Recognize a digital video downlink that looks nothing like Wi-Fi and carries no compliance identifier. |
| Telemetry links | Aircraft carrying a separate data link for flight information, common on hand-built and industrial platforms | Demodulate telemetry protocols, frequently on 900 MHz, which is a different band and a different receiver from everything above. |
| No RF emission | Fully autonomous aircraft flying a pre-loaded route with the transmitter off, and unpowered aircraft | Nothing. There is no signal to receive. No radio-frequency instrument detects this class, ours included. Radar, acoustic, or optical sensing is the answer, and each has its own limits. |
Two things follow from the table. Coverage is a hardware question before it is a software question, because most of these classes sit in different bands and need a receiver tuned to them. And no single sensing technology covers all eight, which is why the last row matters: an instrument that does not tell you what it cannot see is not telling you what it can.
Approaches to detection
Detection systems are built around different sensing approaches. Each has real strengths, and each has boundaries that follow from the design rather than from the quality of the engineering. Knowing which approach a system takes tells you more than a feature list does.
Remote ID receivers. Built around the broadcast standard. They see compliant aircraft reliably, cheaply, and with very little false alarm, which is genuinely valuable where the concern is airspace awareness rather than intrusion. What they do not see is anything not broadcasting — the hardware is tuned for one standard.
Radar. The only approach that detects an aircraft carrying no transmitter, which is the class nothing else reaches. It is also an active system: it emits, which brings spectrum authorization and siting constraints, and it reports a track rather than an identity. It tells you something is there, not what it is.
RF direction finding without demodulation. Detects energy and estimates a bearing, covering a broad slice of spectrum without needing to understand any particular protocol. Because it does not decode, it reports that a signal is present rather than which aircraft produced it, and distinguishing an aircraft from other activity in a busy band is the hard part.
Platform-first systems. Sell a sensor as the entry point to a hosted analysis platform, which buys a polished operating picture and a support relationship. The detection data lives inside that platform, the subscription is not optional, and the sensor is generally of limited use without it.
None of these is wrong. They answer different questions, and a site with a serious problem often ends up running more than one. What matters is knowing which question a given instrument answers before it is specified into a budget.
Bands and coverage notes
Where each signal in the coverage table sits, and which of the eight classes it belongs to.
| Signal | Band | Signal class |
|---|---|---|
| Remote ID Wi-Fi | 2.4 / 5 GHz | Remote ID broadcast |
| Remote ID Bluetooth | 2.4 GHz | Remote ID broadcast |
| OcuSync 2/3 | 2.4 / 5.8 GHz | Commercial control downlink |
| OcuSync 4 | 2.4 / 5.8 GHz | Commercial control downlink |
| Analog FPV | 5 GHz race bands | Analog FPV video |
| RFD900/MAVLink | 900 MHz | Telemetry links |
| mLRS | Multi-band | Open control links |
| ELRS | Multi-band | Open control links |
| No RF | None | No RF emission |
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth control sessions and digital FPV video are not documented capabilities. The Wi-Fi and Bluetooth receivers decode Remote ID broadcasts.
The second software-defined radio on Elite kits is fitted at manufacture and is not a later addition to a Pro kit. It runs one mission at a time, and coverage expands through software releases.
Detection distance is set by antenna selection, height, placement, line of sight, and the RF environment rather than by tier, and is specified per site.
Questions worth asking about any system
Whoever you are evaluating, including us.
Which of the eight classes above does it detect, and which does it not? A system that answers only the first is answering the easiest question.
Does it decode, or does it report that energy is present? Those produce very different records, and only one of them gives you an aircraft.
What happens to the detection data? Whether it publishes into a system you already run, or into a platform you have to keep paying for, determines what the system costs over its life rather than at purchase.
Does it work without a network connection? A sensor that stops when connectivity drops is a sensor with a dependency nobody wrote into the budget.
What is the published price? If there is not one, the evaluation starts with a call rather than with a number.
Passive RF detection and situational awareness only. Performance varies by RF environment, antenna placement, aircraft type, and deployment configuration. Terms and policies.