As a new owner of a Mavic Air, with only one flight under my belt, (really nasty cold and wind since I got it,)  I got to thinking about signal interferece from surround areas and other stuff like you Cell Phone, your Tablet, the Wi-Fi near your flight area.

As also the owner of a P3P and P4, I though that some research that i did for the P3/P4 may be of interest to some of the newer users here.  Back a couple of years ago, when  I first got my P3P, I was very green, and struggling to get good connections at times between the controller and Drone.  I decided to take a look at the various possible signals in use in the flying area.  Living out in the country, not too much Wi-Fi around, except for my own local router.  Baing an avid electronics buff, Ham Radio Operator WB8BGY, I turned to my work bench looking for answers.  After a very careful analyzation of everything going on with the P3P, Controller, My Cell Phone, and Tablet, it became quite clear that there was indeed the opporutnity for interference between the stuff I was carrying on every flight.  I have an HP Spectrum Analyzer, it clearly shown the interference in action!  I present it in a series of very short YouTube Movies, with my personal comments and result of each of the short tests.

Before you even look at my reasearch, I will tell you that I found my culpret!  It was BlueTooth that I normally had turned on so that my phone would sync up with my Car Radio System, allowing me to make and receive phone calls, and use the internet for various functions as well while driving.  Hopefuly some of what I found may be halpful to others as well.  If it even prevents one fly-away, or crash for an unknown reason, that will be very rewarding to hear about.

My advice to you, ALWAYS FLY WITH BLUE TOOTH OFF, AND PUT YOUR DEVICES IN AIRPLANE MODE, when you get to your flight location.

Your can find my research results at WWW.mrrace.com  check out the FUN STUFF page.   It is the first item on top of the list.

I do plan on doing the same series of tests on the Mavic Air, in the near future, as it is a bit different than the P3 & P4 radio systems.

If you have any questions or comments please drop me a note here on the page.
73...WB8BGY..George

Thanks for the advice.  I've begun to use airplane mode, but never have turned off bluetooth and never really had an issue with it.  Perhaps I need to think about that too.  

Yup this was the very issue I was running into with my controller loosing connection to my iPhone 6s using the lightning cable.  I know it was weird.  I would get a disconnect every minute or so and would have to unplug and plug back in just to get it to connect again with the controller.  Putting my iPhone in airplane mode solved the issue.

Hi there im a new mavic air owner and a bit disapointed because of flight distances. I have flown it once its had all its updates but will only reach a distance of around 200 meters before i lose signal and it returns to home. I have set its distance to max but have no luck. In saying all this im new to drones but have previously cut my teeth on flying the spark which was awesome and a great entry level drone. The spark kicked the mavic airs ass for distance flying it in the exact same area reaching distances of 1500 meters i live in suburbia and would expect some interference but not to the point of only being able to fly 200 meters with the air. Can anyone help out  

Yes, I always thought range tests meant nothing with out a check of the noise in the environment.  The last HP Spectrum Analyzer I used consisted of two large linked stacked boxes that was fixed on a bench or rode on a roll around cart.  Handy for seeing how bad the side lobes (harmonics?) were.  I hope your analyzer is smaller and cheaper.

Cheap 2.4ghz transmitters are not all of good quality.  My GoPro camera has a transmitter.  My phone has a transmitter.  My fitbit band has a transmitter.  My drone as occasionally complained.

StanfordWebbie Posted at 2018-3-15 16:54
Thanks for the advice.  I've begun to use airplane mode, but never have turned off bluetooth and never really had an issue with it.  Perhaps I need to think about that too.

Airplane mode turns off  BlueTooth along with Wi-Fi, so you are doing it right!

Gunship9 Posted at 2018-3-15 20:23
Yes, I always thought range tests meant nothing with out a check of the noise in the environment.  The last HP Spectrum Analyzer I used consisted of two large linked stacked boxes that was fixed on a bench or rode on a roll around cart.  Handy for seeing how bad the side lobes (harmonics?) were.  I hope your analyzer is smaller and cheaper.

Cheap 2.4ghz transmitters are not all of good quality.  My GoPro camera has a transmitter.  My phone has a transmitter.  My fitbit band has a transmitter.  My drone as occasionally complained.

I previously had the big dual stack SA by HP as well.  It was a 180 pound monster.  The one I have now is about 10 years old, and cost a whole lot more than the big one that I replaced with it.  If you check out the link at the bottom of my Fun Stuff page you can see the equipment that I used for the analysis.

george.mrrace Posted at 2018-3-16 02:28
I previously had the big dual stack SA by HP as well.  It was a 180 pound monster.  The one I have now is about 10 years old, and cost a whole lot more than the big one that I replaced with it.  If you check out the link at the bottom of my Fun Stuff page you can see the equipment that I used for the analysis.

Ours looked like this.  I think at the time the unit cost near what my parents house cost.  The signal generator on your page was one model newer than the one we had.  I think so anyway as ours could not be tuned by punching in the freq.  We had to dial it in.  Then set 3uv through a 6db antenuator to see if the VHF broke squelch.  Between 3uv and 6uv to pass the test.

For a second I thought you were the retired pilot farmer down the road as he has a Zenith home build he flies out of a strip he cut out of his corn field.  The home page picture looks like him and his plane.  I just keep my RC planes and drone low by my barn when he is up along the bluff.

Gunship9 Posted at 2018-3-16 09:30
Ours looked like this.  I think at the time the unit cost near what my parents house cost.  The signal generator on your page was one model newer than the one we had.  I think so anyway as ours could not be tuned by punching in the freq.  We had to dial it in.  Then set 3uv through a 6db antenuator to see if the VHF broke squelch.  Between 3uv and 6uv to pass the test.

For a second I thought you were the retired pilot farmer down the road as he has a Zenith home build he flies out of a strip he cut out of his corn field.  The home page picture looks like him and his plane.  I just keep my RC planes and drone low by my barn when he is up along the bluff.

Yup, had the same setup, plus I had the external tracking generator setting on top.  The same size, but only about 3 inches high.  New, the one that I have now, and it is fully loaded, built in tracking generator, AM/FM/TV demod, all the internal slots full.  New price was $34,000.00  I bought it for just under 5K, several years ago.  Certified and ready to use.  The signal generator is really great!  Completely computerized, does self calibration, takes about 45 minutes.  Absolutely nothing to adjust except the frequency standard.  I feed it with my Satellite GPS 10 MHZ primary standard.  That also feeds my frequency counter and the HP Spectrum Analyzer as well.
Is really nice to have a PRIMARY frequency standard on the test bench.  i do a lot of ebay buying and selling.  When a piece leaves here it meets or exceeds factory specifications.
Yes, my strip was cut out of my corn field!  Sold the Zenith 701 a few years back, was great fun to build and fly out of the back yard.  Take care and all the best,
George

george.mrrace Posted at 2018-3-16 02:24
Airplane mode turns off  BlueTooth along with Wi-Fi, so you are doing it right!

When I put my iPhone 6 in Airplane Mode the WiFi stays on and still works. I've had connectivity issues with my Mavic Air so will try and disable the WiFi next time I fly and see if that helps.

fansede0d6e2 Posted at 2018-3-15 19:59
Hi there im a new mavic air owner and a bit disapointed because of flight distances. I have flown it once its had all its updates but will only reach a distance of around 200 meters before i lose signal and it returns to home. I have set its distance to max but have no luck. In saying all this im new to drones but have previously cut my teeth on flying the spark which was awesome and a great entry level drone. The spark kicked the mavic airs ass for distance flying it in the exact same area reaching distances of 1500 meters i live in suburbia and would expect some interference but not to the point of only being able to fly 200 meters with the air. Can anyone help out

First, you will find lots of reference material here in the forum for issues related to connection issues and distance.  

First, put the phone you have attached to the RC into airplane mode, and make sure any other phones that are close, are also in airplane mode.  

I have found in urban settings, the 5.8ghz spectrum is much less used, while 2.4ghz is a mess.  usually mine will pick one of the channels in the 5.8 range, but you can verify this on your settings, and you may have to force the 5.8ghz channel.

Also, not sure if you have FCC mode, or CE, but check that.  FCC is basically twice the transmission power of CE, so forcing the FCC mode will help lots.

Simple things like ensuring you have the flat part of the RC antenna pointed towards the AC, not the tips.

You may get warnings at any point, but just the other day, I had my MA out nearly 2400M, so distance is possible.

It’s great advice, have heard it before but not with so much research attached, thanks for this. I’m sure it will help many.

I've seen this advice regurgitated a few times around here, and it is just WRONG.

On 0300 FW and older versions of the DJI GO 4 app, there were NO issues flying the MA long-range with cellular, and bluetooth enabled on your connected smartphone, or having your fitness tracker / Apple Watch running / connected at the same time.

The issues begun with the 0400 FW and the 4.2.16 (and newer) versions of the DJI GO 4 app on both Android and iOS, being far worse for Android users. This has been widely documented and reported here, and if you're an Android user, you can even go to the Google Play Store page for the app, and see the litany of 1-star reviews now coming in, and running your device in Airplane mode doesn't help at all.

The situation will be improved once DJI releases app and FW versions with the needed fixes.

https://forum.dji.com/thread-135892-1-1.html

Think you will find that above is incorrect, both video transmission and distance problems have been reported , in every firmware since Mavic Air’s inception.

There are at least another 20 threads referring to the same problems , you can find them on Google.

i have BT tracker on drone no problems.

Totally agree , I was having signal interference loads on holiday , I had my iPad and phone in airplane mode so could not understand it , put it down to the hotels around beech with powerful WiFi boosters , BUT then I realized had my Apple Watch on ..turned it off and had maybe 1 or 2 warnings on 6 batteries of flying ..you live and learn eh ..lol