so this has been bugging me for a while and im not sure if its my unit or something im doing wrong. basically im getting warning signals and sometimes brief disconnects at distances that just seem way too short. like im talking maybe 800 meters in a pretty open area and it starts getting sketchy. i know the advertised range is like 10km or whatever which is obviously in ideal conditions but 800m still feels low even accounting for real world stuff.

im in a suburban area so there's definitely some interference but my neighbor flies his Phantom 4 in the same spots and says he doesnt have this problem at all. i updated firmware maybe 3 months ago. using the standard controller that came with it, not a smart controller. the antennas are pointed the right way, ive watched enough youtube to know that much lol.

anyone had this and figured out what was going on? kind of at a loss here

first thing id check is whether your phone is causing interference. some phones have really aggressive wifi that bleeds into the 2.4ghz band the controller uses and it can wreck your range. try switching the controller to 5.8ghz in the transmission settings if you havent already, that usually helps in suburban areas even though 5.8 has shorter theoretical range, it handles congested RF environments better. also what phone are you using? some iphones in particular have known issues with certain controller combos

had almost the exact same thing happen with mine, turned out one of the antenna connections inside the controller had gotten a little loose, you could barely tell from the outside. took it to a local repair guy (not official DJI service just a hobbyist who does repairs) and he reseated it and it was back to normal range. not saying thats definitely your problem but worth keeping in mind if the software stuff doesnt sort it out