When I purchased my Inspire1 earlier this year, the forums were full of pilots experiencing odd behaviours, even crashes.  A lot of these issues were blamed on RF Interference, whether being from cell phones left on in a pocket, wifi on the tablet or even cell towers in the area.  This concerned me to the point of asking people near me to turn off their cell phones.  Then, after a shoot one day, I discovered I had left my cell on in my pocket.  Another time it was the wifi left on the tablet.  These shoot were all uneventful.  I began to question whether cell phones actually did interfere with the GPS of the Inspire1.  

Last month, I shot a farmers field which happened to be situated between two cell towers.  I was reluctant at first.  I took off in ATTI mode and once airborne switched over to GPS.  All was fine.  I completed the shoot mostly in GPS mode, without issues.   

Last week, I had a shoot at a winery.  This time, I was going to be operating  in the shadow of a cell tower.  Again, no issues in GPS mode.

Anyone else have similar experiences?  I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of the issues people had were actually Pilot error, not RF interference.

I would have to agree with you. I have 2 cell phones, 1 is personal and the other business. I have never shut them.off and they are always hanging on my side while I am flying and with 40 plus flights have never had an issue. In addition there are several cell towers near my home location and they do not appear to cause any issues as well.

It's pilot error, not rf interference.  Most due to moving the craft after powering it up when the camera spins and its in self test mode or improper compass or imu calibrations.  Sometimes also due to gps signal dropping and the pilot not knowing how to fly in atti mode.

No RF interference issues with the I1 - lots of talk and speculation here and elsewhere leading the ignorant amongst us to firmly believe an issue exists simply because they read it in a post somewhere.
Absolutely no need to shut down cellular gear or 2-way UHF - no issues with flying in close proximity to large electricity transmission lines either.

I would agree that earlier concerns raise din this area are most probably attributable to pilot error / inexperience or perhaps some of the early firmware bugs with GPS hold and such.   

for the record i use my samsung galaxy note 4 cell phone to fly and i dont shut anything off, zero problems in the last 10 months of flying.

No problem, I've flown in cities without issue other than shortened range due to trees/buildings blocking line of sight/signal. Wifi signal range it's relatively short, many large houses need multiple access points to cover the whole structure with usable signal, you'd have to be standing or flying pretty close to a broadcast base to have an issue if even then.

I agree with you and have managed similar events with Wi-Fi on and Cell phone on in my pocket. I believe that outside interference can affect us but it is pretty slim chance. The only gain I see by turning off your Cell phone and Wi-Fi is to lessen the possibility of interference.

PS, I have flown around HV power without issues for my job. Wind farms or Solar power....

Rich

It's only good for around 200 ft in optimal conditions unless you have extra antennas/boosters or something. At any rate I'm highly skeptical it will cause interference anyway unless maybe if you're close enough to 14 different wifi transmitters covering all frequencies.

I say let the uninformed continue to shut down all outside communications while flying.  Distractions are distractions and clearly they don't need them.

My experience is that the Cell Sites only interfere the Wi-Fi connection if applicable. When I am using a Wi-Fi connection to fly I enter "Airplane Mode" works great.

I'm guessing that other large cities have what we have in Minneapolis.  Here, people who live and/or work in the city proper can subscribe to city wide WiFi.  I don't know the signal strength, but I do know that wherever I go in the city and access my browser, the city WiFi is the first to be listed, which makes me assume its signal is the strongest.   Basically I won't be flying anywhere in the city.

The DJI GO APP has a very useful display of the RF environment showing power and stability of RF channels used by the Inspire which are above the communication 2.4 channels used.  Try it.

I had two instances.
I experienced heavy interference when I flew near another pilot. He has a Phantom 3 and I had my inspire 1. I would get a "Weak Signal" and would get very low quialty, freezing, and pixelation on my video feed.
Our RCs were about 20 feet from eachother. He didnt experience much problems. I was on Ch 13 and he was on Ch 18.
This was only the video feed that had a problem. Control was never lost as I kept the inspire1 in line of sight (about 100-200 yards away)

The second instance was at a car event at a open lot, and here I did get heavy interference on control immediately after take off. The Inspire 1 would jitter in all directions on its own, I had to fight it to keep it stable. Video signal was fine, and it stated SAFE to Fly with full GPS. There was a lot of people and that means a lot of cell phones.

ATTI mode is a life saver for anyone that experiences interference.

Personally, I believe a lot has been fixed with firmware updates and RMA's.