Im flying my MA behind a single tree 20 meters away and i already losing signal, not to mention that going around building is impossible. Im watching people on YT flying away 4km behind obstacles and i cant get past 500 meters with line of sight..
Is this normal for MA?
My Mobile is P20Pro

There are two aspects you need to be aware of: 1. You are in the CE transmission standard region where the signal is much weaker than in the FCC standard region (North America and other countries). The videos you have seen come from these regions with strong signal. 2. The transmission between you and Mavic Air requires a free line of sight. Any obstacle in between will cause problems and trees are in particular problematic. Thus from your description I cannot see any abnormal behavior.

Hi. I'm sorry for the inconvenience that this caused you. Please make sure to fly your drone above or away from tree and any other obstacle because this will cause a problem with the signal of your RC to your AC and this will lead to crash. Please fly with caution. Thank you!

Is it because there is a WiFi connection for the MA?

If you block out signal that’s what happens unfortunately, signal is blocked, there are many warnings in your manual about this.
Best to keep LOS with RC to Aircraft and VLOS with Aircraft.

STRIDE8 Posted at 2018-8-2 14:18
Is it because there is a WiFi connection for the MA?

Yes, it is WiFi and not a radio signal. And for being just WiFi, it is amazingly good if you simply avoid any obstacles between RC and aircraft. Here in Europe the regulations anyway allow to fly only in visual line of sight in most countries, which means around 300 meters maximum for a small aircraft like Mavic Air (I personally do not see anything of it when 300 meters away). Only once for testing I have flown it 1,000 meters away without any problems but with free line of sight, no obstacles in between.

There are videos showing it going 4km and back another 4km, but battery is on the limit fot that. Maybe it can go even farther but battery wont hold to come back. I personally get around 300 to 500m from my home using 5.8ghz in a urban crowded place but with walls and stuff in between, a not so open space. Going higher give more range as the signal reaches the controller easier as there are fewer obstacles between, but you cant go too high on a city for safety reasons (and legal reasons). One day I got past 2km when I got to the roof of my house to have clear Line Of Sight between the controller and the aircraft and decided to go back and not push it even more. I could have gone farther but not safely (on battery side). And 2km is already a very nice range. I'm still today amazed I got that and I'm sure it can go the 4km DJI says it can.
And I can assure you having something in between RC and AC and having nothing makes a huge difference.

Just imagine you're holding a big light like this one:



And you shine it at a tree. If someone is stood right behind the tree, how much light would they see? If they stood further back, maybe more like would come around the sides of the tree, but it would still be blocked. Maybe if there are reflective objects around, some light would reflect behind the tree, but again be nowhere near as bright as looking directly at the spotlight.

Similar with radio waves - just another form of electromagnetic radiation.

Read the article below. It gives you better understanding how the radio signal works and what you need to do to get best range.

http://blog.parrot.com/2018/07/31/anafi-wi-fi-range-efficiency/

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-8-2 14:26
Yes, it is WiFi and not a radio signal. And for being just WiFi, it is amazingly good if you simply avoid any obstacles between RC and aircraft. Here in Europe the regulations anyway allow to fly only in visual line of sight in most countries, which means around 300 meters maximum for a small aircraft like Mavic Air (I personally do not see anything of it when 300 meters away). Only once for testing I have flown it 1,000 meters away without any problems but with free line of sight, no obstacles in between.

WiFi is a radio signal.  Or more accurately, uses radio signals to transmit information.  "WiFi" is just a name for a communications protocol for wirelessly transmitting data.  Radio waves are the underlying mechanism by which the data is transmitted.  Don't think there's any other way to wirelessly transmit data from one point to another that's been discovered so far.

dcaton Posted at 2018-8-2 17:53
WiFi is a radio signal.  Or more accurately, uses radio signals to transmit information.  "WiFi" is just a name for a communications protocol for wirelessly transmitting data.  Radio waves are the underlying mechanism by which the data is transmitted.  Don't think there's any other way to wirelessly transmit data from one point to another that's been discovered so far.

Don't think there's any other way to wirelessly transmit data from one point to another that's been discovered so far.

Photons

dcaton Posted at 2018-8-2 17:53
WiFi is a radio signal.  Or more accurately, uses radio signals to transmit information.  "WiFi" is just a name for a communications protocol for wirelessly transmitting data.  Radio waves are the underlying mechanism by which the data is transmitted.  Don't think there's any other way to wirelessly transmit data from one point to another that's been discovered so far.

Thumbs Up for nailing WiFi as system / protocol that uses radio signals to transmit data.