Guys,

I've flown my Air 2S in the city, in the desert, within line of sight, etc. — but I've never been able to achieve a good range, even the 1/4 of the 12km that the manual states. I've maybe managed to fly 1km away, but most of the time, I barely get 650m.

I've tried it all. Dual-band, single band, AirPlane mode on the phone, directing the RC toward the drone... I can understand how the 12km the manual talks about is an overstatement, but 1/12th of it?! I am considering returning this drone. FIlming in Sedona, I was not even able to fly past a nearby rock - when the drone was on the other side of it, I'd lose the signal...

...any suggestions?

You still have to maintain LOS (pretend you can see that far) with no any kind of interference between the RC and the Drone.  That's all I can suggest.  Good luck!

You need to launch your drone and remote control it from a high ground to ensure your direct line of sight between you and your drone.
There can't be any sort of blocking or interference between you and your drone, If you want to get that 12km range.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out. For you to achieve the said max distance, you need to fly in a location wherein there is no possible interference. Also, kindly please make sure that the antenna of the remote controller is well-positioned for you to have a better range. In addition, if you already manage to try all the possible troubleshooting steps and still the issue persists, I'm afraid that you may consider sending the unit in for a proper diagnosis. You can contact our support team to start up a ticket at https://www.dji.com/support. Thank you for your understanding and support!

Solution is don't ever buy dji again

If you flew in the desert (which should be basically signal interference free) and nothing was between the RC and the drone then I'd say you may have bad hardware.  It may well be time to contact DJI support and send in the RC and Drone to have it fully checked out.

You commented "again" in your post, what is the history of the concern?
If you fly behind a rock, tree, building, etc. You will lose signal. ANYTHING solid will block the signal, it won't "bend" around the obstacle!
Sedona (especially near town or most of the "scenic" areas) is very congested and a lot of cell and other towers there.
Get way out of town and test with a clear line of sight(no buildings/rocks, etc between the remote and the drone).
Also, height is your friend as far as signal strength goes... unless you are in a completely flat, barren area, more height will give a better "angle" for the signal
If you can, just either have it checked or return/exchange for another? I had terrible range/signal issues with the first Air2S ( I bought it at Best Buy on release day) and the second unit I exchanged for is much better

jmb63 Posted at 7-24 05:16
You commented "again" in your post, what is the history of the concern?
If you fly behind a rock, tree, building, etc. You will lose signal. ANYTHING solid will block the signal, it won't "bend" around the obstacle!
Sedona (especially near town or most of the "scenic" areas) is very congested and a lot of cell and other towers there.

Thank you, I will definitely take your advice when testing the drone. I hope this isn't the case with my Air 2S that I have a "faulty" one.

Thank you, I will look into more testing and get back to you all.

As long as your are LOS and in an interference free environment you should be able to hit the 6-7Km battery bottleneck without problems. Phone in airplane mode and controller allways pointing.

Without pointing, through obstacles and so you can hit 1Km easily in FCC mode, or even a bit more, but if you want long range you must keep it LOS without obstacles/interference.

I too have serious range issues with my 2S.  Unable to fly beyond 1/2 mile.  I have no obstacles in between transmitter and drone.  I'm flying with an iPhone xr. Does flying in airplane mode help with range?  Are there any range extenders recommended by DJI?

makika Posted at 8-27 10:28
I too have serious range issues with my 2S.  Unable to fly beyond 1/2 mile.  I have no obstacles in between transmitter and drone.  I'm flying with an iPhone xr. Does flying in airplane mode help with range?  Are there any range extenders recommended by DJI?

You have to fly with an unobstructed line of sight, with the controller pointing towards the drone and the phone in airplane mode. If there are obstacles, antennas or dense areas with lots of WiFi routers expect the signal to go down a bit.

With the phone being so close to the antenna, if it's not in airplane mode it will interfere, LTE, WiFi and Bluetooth must be off, specially WiFi, but some frequencies on the LTE band also interfere.

You are already in FCC mode, so idk if the FCC/Boost hack from DH will make any difference. As for the antennas if you want a real improvement you need a boosted antenna, Alientench has some antennas, but are a bit expensive, you have to open the controller to install them the frist time and IMO are a bit overkill.

I'm a long ranger myself and I have the stock controller with the DJI controller sunhood atached (bloks the signal a little bit) and the DH FCC hack and as allways the main bottleneck is the battery. I usually work at 1-3Km with no problems.