Potensic Atom SE

#1242: How My Brand New Ruko U11MINI 4K Drone Ended Up on the Bottom of Lake Huron

RECORD STORE TALES #1242: How My Brand New Ruko U11MINI 4K Drone Ended Up on the Bottom of Lake Huron

It was like watching time stand still.  First, I heard the motors fall silent.  Then, I watched it begin to fall like a stone.  I calmly and solemnly thought, “There is nothing I can do.  It is going right into the water, and there won’t even be point in fishing it out.  It is what it is.”  It made a satisfying “THONK!” sound as it crashed into the nearby rock pile.  I stood a moment in silence as I considered any options, and concluded there were none, so I turned around and walked the path back up to the cottage.

How did we get here?  Let’s rewind.

In 2024,  I took a chance and indulged myself in my first and most trustworthy drone:  the Potensic Atom SE.  It was a revelation to me, as readers know.  I took the drone to the cottage and flew it over Lake Huron repeatedly.  Stunt flying over the rocks is a treat and results in amazing “feels like flying” video footage.  My review of the Potensic went viral with a modest 4000 views.  It was enough to get the attention of the Ruko company in 2025, who offered to send me their brand new U11Mini 4K in exchange for a review.  It had two advantages over the Potensic that I hoped to exploit.  The first is the 3-axis brushless camera gimble, which enables level images no matter what angle your drone is flying at.  The other is the 4K camera, a step up from the Potensic.  Imagine the video of Lake Huron I could capture with that!


First Flight of 2026 with the Potensic Atom SE drone

I flew the Ruko twice and wrote a positive review.  I did struggle a bit with the controls, but chalked it up to inexperience.   I expected to get the hang of it, but that never happened.  It was just a really difficult drone to fly, and that did not improve after I wrote the review.  Landing on a specific target was simply impossible, and the drone would fly off on its own without any input from the controls.  I re-calibrated the Ruko and fiddled with the settings.  It could not hover in place, moved on its own, and crashed into a tree.  I sent an email to the Ruko company, who asked for my flight logs.  After reviewing them, they sent me a replacement Ruko.  This arrived in the winter, so I had to wait until spring 2026 to try it.  I fully expected all issues would be resolved.

One thing I noticed about the Ruko is that it couldn’t handle light winds as well as the Potensic.  The Ruko tends to drift while the Potensic is still as a stone.  I waited for the first quiet morning before removing the second Ruko from its packaging and preparing it for first flight.  I had already had my first flight of 2026 with the Potensic, which performed up to its exemplary standards.  There was less wind on the morning I tested the Ruko.  I began in a small clearing as I usually do.  The Ruko always takes time connecting to the GPS, which is a much faster process with the Potensic.  (On my original Ruko, there were days it could not connect to GPS at all, and I had to pack it up again.)  Once connected, I started the motors and began to hover.

The new Ruko was still not as rock-steady as the Potensic, but it was a marked improvement over the original Ruko.  I felt reassured that whatever was wrong with the original drone (they never told me) had been fixed.  I had a very early U11Mini, one of the first in Canada.  It is possible improvements or corrections were made after.  With my new drone now in the air, I marveled at the clarity of the video.  I took it up higher, with the intention of flying it over the lake and capturing those misty greens and blues.

With great care, I drifted slowly over the trees, and down to the beach.  The drone seemed to be performing acceptably.  Time to test the camera.  I wanted to get some footage of the rock piles and compare the quality to the Potensic.  Already, I was impressed with the level camera.  I panned straight down to capture the rocks.  The drone seemed to struggle a little over the rocks.  It lost altitude, so I raised it again.  It started to drift downwards again, so I raised it.   I panned back up to the horizon with the intention to fly back in, when suddenly the motors died.  They just stopped completely, and the drone fell from the sky, into the water and rocks below.


First and Final Flight 2026 with the RukoU11Mini 4k drone

“It didn’t cost me anything,” I lamented I walked back up the trail to the cottage.  “Except the memory card!”  I shared the memory card between the Potensic and the Ruko, so there would be no more flying at all for me this weekend.

The Ruko company advised me not to fly the drone over water, but at this point I have two years’ experience doing just that with my Potensic.  I have a cottage on Lake Huron:  of course that’s what I’m going to film with my drone!  If I cant fly over water, then I’m not interested in a drone.  The Potensic flies like a slalom skier through the rocks, but the Ruko couldn’t even hover over them.  Even if I chose to ignore the Ruko company’s directions, it was with the experience I’ve gained, and the certainty that I would chose the Potensic over the Ruko every time if I couldn’t fly over water.

When the water levels drop in the coming weeks, I’ll walk out to the rocks and fish what remains of my drone from the water.  Maybe some adventurous canoer will have already found it by then.  I will never fly a Ruko drone again, but my experience with the 4k camera and the 3-axis gimble was positive.  Potensic have a drone similar to mine, but with the 4k/3-axis camera option.  It’s pricey (about the same as a super deluxe Rush box set), but I am seriously considering that upgrade.

I have flown three drones to date, and I’m still flying the first.  Now that I have a newer and bigger memory card in hand, I look forward to our further adventures this summer.

Rest in peace, Ruko, in your watery grave at the bottom of Lake Huron.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Drone Videos from the Potensic Atom SE

These three drone videos are the edited-down results of everything I shot on the weekend of July 4-6.  All videos were shot with the Potensic Atom SE.  I brought both the Potensic and the Ruko, but as you can see, it was a very windy weekend and I did not want to risk the Ruko.  Next weekend, I will attempt to fly the Ruko again.

Enjoy these magnificent videos, and amazing songs by Deep Purple, Hello Hopeless and the Arkells.

 

#1197: Moose Sausage & Mental Health

RECORD STORE TALES #1197: Moose Sausage & Mental Health

Summer is well on its way.  I’ve waited a long time to get here.

I love doing live broadcasts from the cottage.  This weekend was going to be packed full, just like our bags and boxes that we loaded in the car for our first trip of July.  We hit the road at 4:30 on Thursday.  Preparing for Friday’s live episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden, we played all of Live at Donington on the way to the lake.  Not necessarily the best album for a lake drive, but Jen liked it, and it helped me prepare a little bit extra for the show.

Thursday night was peaceful, but hot.  There was not much to do but play music on the porch.  I cued up Tonight At Toad’s Place by Blotto, and started working on some show-related writing.  Dr. Kathryn came over for a quick visit.  We gossiped a bit about people we used to know, and after dark I shut it down for the night.  Friday was going to be a fun day for us.

I began my Friday morning by cooking up a delicious moose sausage, and editing a new episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden.  I wanted to do minimal editing, just to fix a couple spots with issues, but I ended up having a little more fun with it.  At 8 AM we left for the butcher (The Beefway) and bought two steaks, a chicken breast, some lamb chops, and the best bacon I’ve ever cooked in my life.  This extra thick cut bacon was so soft and sweet.  It led me to an idea.

Canadian breakfast:  moose sausage & mayo on a bun, with coffee.

We were going to do roasted potatoes on the BBQ.  Jen likes to stuff hers with butter, but I had a different idea.  I sliced up some fatty parts of the bacon and stuffed my potato with that.  The end result was a delicious potato that tasted like a Smokey Bacon BBQ potato chip.  The bacon pieces inside were soft and melted like butter in your mouth.  A new masterpiece, but one that I feel I can only do with the exact right bacon.  It has to be cut thick with lots of fat.  And it worked beautifully.

The lamb, chicken and steaks also turned out really well.  I did up some stuffed peppers with cream cheese, green onions and more bacon.  The chicken breast ended up being the best one I’d ever made.  The Beefway simply have the best food, and I have to admit I’m not too bad a chef myself.  I used about half a bottle of BBQ sauce on one chicken breast, but that’s because I wanted it perfectly and completely coated.  It came out so juicy and flavorful.  Grocery store chicken seems to have a weird preservative taste these days.  Not the stuff from the Beefway!

Friday night’s episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden went really well.  It was our first live episode in quite a while, but I am glad that Harrison and I still have the skills.  A surprise came that night:  a donation!  Our very first donation!  Viewer Ryan Potter had this to say:

Thanks for this series guys! I’ve been enjoying revisiting these albums and going through my Maiden Collection with each episode.

Thank you Ryan for this first-ever thank-you.  If we ever felt like we were not doing as good a job as we want to, Ryan’s comment will remind us that we’re doing just fine.

Friday was a difficult episode, because we had to review four CDs of Iron Maiden:  A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, and Live at Donington (2 CDs).  There were also two CD singles with an additional three bonus tracks to tackle.  It required a lot of listening and a lot of notes, but Harrison and I managed to cover it all between the two of us.  A proud night.

Friday night’s broadcast location for 50 Years of Iron Maiden.

But that was just the beginning for our live streaming adventures on the weekend.

Jex Russell, my “other” main co-host for many moons in the past, has been dealing with life lately.  He recently had some free time come up, and said to me, “I’m ready.  I want to do a live show.  I want to tell people where I have been and what I’ve been up to.  Let’s call it Ask Jex Anything and we’ll discuss mental health.”

I loved this idea.

We discussed when to go live.  I was pushing for 8 AM Saturday morning, based on a past show we did in that time slot together.  Mostly though, I didn’t want to do two live shows during prime cottage hours.  One was fine.  Two would be spending too much time on a screen during the best time of day.  Jex was hesitant.  What’s the point of an “Ask Jex Anything” episode if there’s nobody watching to ask?  I crossed my fingers and set up the broadcast from my favourite spot:  fireside.  I gathered the firewood and a Canadian flag for an epic backdrop.  I waited for 8 AM to come.

I think I had pretty much the best broadcast desk of any music show on YouTube today. You can get Pete Pardo with his wall of CDs behind him, or a “Hair Metal Guru” with loads of memorabilia, but nobody else in music had a backdrop like mine.  A roaring fire, a Canadian flag, and nature.  A few people walking down the road were wondering why this guy was out at 8 AM, talking on a laptop, at a computer desk in the middle of a beautiful green enclave.  Why?  Because it’s awesome!

Saturday’s office.

I had confidence that we would do a good show, viewers or no viewers.  We always do.

It didn’t take long for the viewers to show up, and for Jex and I to open up, about mental health, music and balance.  The questions began pouring in, and I could not keep up with the comments.  Some people woke up early just to watch this special episode of Grab A Stack of Rock.  Johnny Clauser and Tim Durling joined as surprise guests to share their own stories.  Confessions were made, and I told a chapter of my story that I have never revealed before.  Not even in Record Store Tales.

I believe that Satuday’s show, Ask Jex Anything: Music and Mental Health, is the most important episode we’ve ever done.  Much to Jex’s relief, we had great views.  Even exceeding the previous night’s 50 Years of Iron Maiden.  We are very, very proud.

It ended up being a very good decision to go live in the morning.  Black Sabbath were playing their final concert that afternoon.  Everybody would be watching that, had we decided to go live later on.  The morning show was a blessing.

From that point on, Saturday was ours to enjoy.  It got hot – very hot.  Eventually we went into town to get some air conditioning and soda pop.  Staying cool was a challenge, and it prevented me from doing too much that day.  No writing completed.

Droning on.

I did get to fly my drone a bit.  I chose to fly my original drone, the Potensic.  It is the better drone for stunt flying, and I made a few great videos.  I still have to edit these.  I managed to get one uploaded, which is “Nothing At All” by Deep Purple, to the visuals of a Lake Huron sunrise.

Sunday morning was time to pack our bags and head home.   My mood crashed that day.  It was an uncanny feeling of autumn; of “back to school”, even though it was only July.  I could not shake that depressed feeling.  We listened to April Wine on the way home because I wanted music that I was less familiar with.  “All Over Town” is my new favourite song, but the crash hit me hard.

We tried to cheer me up by ordering in a nice dinner (The Burgers Priest), but failed.  I woke up Monday morning unable to get out of bed.  I lay there for hours, tired and worn out.  I worked from home on Monday.  In the old days I would have gone to work and felt worse and worse as the day went on.  This time I managed.  It is nice to have those options to work from home.  It saved my Monday.

A beautiful weekend was had, despite the crash at the end.  We’ll be back for my birthday.  Close yet far!