So I got the Phantom 3 and love it. I fly about 3 to 10 times a week sometimes. I have 3 batteries and use an ipad mini.

I use my Phantom 3 for news events as well as searching. I also have used it just for fun. I went to the beach and flew 4,100ft with no interference and chose to bring it back just because the battery was getting low. In the city and local fields I get about 700ft to 2,500 ft. But recently I was doing some searching with the drone in a neighborhood. My job was to go house to house and look in some backyards. When I took off I had a gps signal and a clear image on the screen. After about 10 min of flying my image started cutting out and the p3 was only about 200ft from me tops at any point. It got so bad that I just had to fly it right with me. I was very frustrated as it was a great tool to have at the moment. But it let me down.

3 days after that I went to another incident. I got a clear picture on my ipad, gps is ready. I went to move the camera up and down while still on the ground and there was about a 3 second delay. I took off anyway as time is a factor. I get up about 60ft and about 100ft away from me and I can't see jack on my screen. It's all gray. Then I get half a frozen image that stays on there for about 5 seconds. I have no idea what I am filming. (When I got back and looked at the footage I was filming a house for about a whole min. I didn't even know that because I had no image) This is very frustrating. Whe I need to use my drone for searching I need it to be up in the air in 1min after I fire it up. I also keep 3 batteries on charge. I can swap a battery out in 10sec after landing and I am back up again. But I have not even used the second and 3rd battery.

So what can be done to minimize interference? Conditions are this. Dense neighborhood, Police Cars with 800mhz within 10ft - 500 ft, other police cars with 400mhz range antennas. I can't figure out what is causing the problems. I have had this happen ones before right outside my work and that never used to happen. The the next day it was fine. I will try to get soem screen shots of this at some point.

It could be so many things.  I am an Android user.  I would start by (if you have not already) disabling the ipads Wifi, GSM, bluetooth etc.  Put it into Flight Mode (or apple equivalent), kill as many app processes as possible, to try and rule out the ipads performance.  I found doing this on my Galaxy S4, improves the Pilot Apps performance. eg no video loss, less app crashs, etc.  But I have not flown in a high radio traffic area. I hope this helps.

Absolonkort is correct.  It could be a lot of things.  Try to eliminate as much as possible.

However, once that is done, based upon your description of events and the number of similar issues with other users here in this forum, I would guess that the ribbon cable from your camera is either loose or broken.

I have read in a forum that one should turn off the WIFI and Bluetooth features in the I Phone or IPad to avoid interference. I don't recall reading this in any of the manuals but throw it out just in case. Let me know. Thanks

Job sounds interesting...searching peoples yards from above.  what are you looking for (if you don't mind me asking).  Just curious..

Been checking the forums here for people's experiences. Have yet to buy one.  But redwing your interference problem I think  I know what it is and may effect others as well in urban settings.  Note: I'm a 15 year ham radio operator so I know interference well. Lol. Anyway from what I've read these drones operate in the 2.4 to 5.8 ghz  range for control.. Basically your wifi routers frequencies..  Here lies the problem.. About 7 years ago the FCC allocated 2.4 ghz for wifi and unfortunately wireless cameras. (Not to be confused with the wifi type) but 2.4 ghz analog transmission.  Long story short here is that these cameras splatter (use up) a large chunk of the allocated frequencies) and wipe out all wifi communications because they are always on..  The wifi versions transmit off and on and pick a channel without interference..  This is how you can have a hi rise with hundreds of tenants all using wifi but don't conflict that much with each other.  These cameras don't do that.  They blast the entire 16 channels (I forget the exact number).  So if your near or fly over one of these house with these security cameras your signal goes out..  I experienced this when a next door neighbor put these up and it blasted  our wifi network off the air.. It was so bad even being in the same room as the router the laptops wouldn't connect.  Major brands are SWAN and X-10.   Fortunately there has been a shift to the wifi friendly versions for internet viewing access and control.   Now to decide if I want a new ham radio or a drone. Lol

Digi Dave Posted at 2015-7-14 08:47
Been checking the forums here for people's experiences. Have yet to buy one.  But redwing your inter ...

I am no expert, for sure, but he appears to have complete control of the aircraft.  It's only the video that's bad.  Does that make a difference?

spiderbot.sb Posted at 2015-7-14 22:47
I am no expert, for sure, but he appears to have complete control of the aircraft.  It's only the  ...

Yes that could be the case, only the camera signal from the drone might be in the 2.4 ghz along with the security cameras.  Control for the drone could be in the 5.8 ghz.   I have yet to dig into the specs of the drone.  I have a small starter quad copter $50 to get my feet wet, it has a camera but not FPV that uses 2.4 ghz for control. Oh and I forgot some older wireless home phones uses 2.4 ghz as well. FCC really messed this up years ago. After some quick digging control for the Djji is in the 5.8 ghz range at least the newer ones, but again sharing with next gen wifi and cordless phones.  Basically all low power unlicensed  transmitters, and there's a lot of gadgets out there on 2.4 ghz and 5.8 ghz.  Just type in those frequencies in goggle and you'll see what I mean. Unfortunately all have to accept interference.. In a nutshell be a lot more careful flying in urban areas, radio towers (cross modulation/inter modulation -mixing) can cause you to lose control and mess up the GPS as well.   Helpful hint, stay away (mile or more) from any radio towers (check roofs on hi rises). They can overload the receiver and GPS on the drone. My scanner gets interference when I get to close to a transmitter that's for weather radio, it mixes with the police cars in area and gets twice as loud as 3 stations try to come in (police/weather and a digital trunking system) Really annoying... Only the real "Pros" ie police/government get dedicated high power frequencies to use, this is still in the toy category. Safe flying.  Here's some info from wikapedia on it.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band

shugyofoto@yaho Posted at 2015-7-14 08:17
Job sounds interesting...searching peoples yards from above.  what are you looking for (if you don't ...

It's not that great. I actually don't charge for this service. It's searching for the bad guys. So I need it to work on the spot. I am going to try and disable everything and see what happens.

Digi Dave Posted at 2015-7-15 02:26
Yes that could be the case, only the camera signal from the drone might be in the 2.4 ghz along wit ...

I live and fly in an urban area with many 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi routers.  There are phone towers all around.  There's a fire station just down the street.  I have a few security cameras.  I leave my wifi connected.  I have no interference issues.

spiderbot.sb Posted at 2015-7-15 22:14
I live and fly in an urban area with many 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi routers.  There are phone towers all ...

That's  great, but be aware  in new areas you could have problems. It's a combination of the many combinations of transmitters and all it takes is one to be improperly maintained to cause problems.  A transformer and power lines can add to this as well.  "Your mileage may vary " as the saying goes..  Safe flying..  Anyone recomend a good starter dji camera platform ?  New or older model.. Not  ready to drop a grand yet but...  Would like gps/return to home/FPV.  

I've worked with cell phones and wifi for years.  They don't seem to interfere with each other that much, mostly because communication between talker and listener are coded.  In addition, tons of error correction are incorporated in the hardware and software.  Google 'viterbi algorithm', for example.

Most devices recover gracefully from bad data.  Of course, no one knows what's inside the P3.

Transformers and power lines are magnetic in nature as well as full of high voltage and we should all stay away from them.

If you don't want to build one, the P3 is about it.  Otherwise wait a year or two.

spiderbot.sb Posted at 2015-7-18 03:19
I've worked with cell phones and wifi for years.  They don't seem to interfere with each other that  ...

Thanks :-).

Digi Dave Posted at 2015-7-20 10:58
Thanks :-).

I'm sorry, I didn't really answer your question correctly.

The Syma X5C is a very inexpensive quad with a camera.  It is not a stabilized platform but it's cheap enough to use for practice and not waste too much money if you crash.

I hope this helps.