Poor Radio Channel Quality?

Finase · Mar 31, 2018

Today, I purchased a DJI Phantom 4. I have never had one before, but I do have a DJI Mavic Pro so I was pretty familiar with how it operates. However, I have been having an issue with my Phantom 4. Every time I turn it on, there is a problem with the image transmission and I can't see the live video clearly. Sometimes, the bottom half of the video goes black, sometimes there are thin black horizontal lines throughout the video, sometimes the video appears/flickers green, and sometimes its just a little bit pixelized. I updated the drone to the latest firmware and tried updating the controller although I'm not sure if it worked because the firmware menu for the controller has been acting up a little bit. The radio channels seem very unstable in the image transmission settings. I have tried this at home and I have tried this miles and miles in a pretty open area, but the same thing happens. I have attached a YouTube video below as well as some images so you can see whats happening for yourself.

I purchased the drone used from someone else and when they flew it with their iPad this morning, it worked normally. When I got home and tried it for myself, It didn't work... I don't know what can possibly be the issue.

Any suggestions, ideas would be very helpful.

- DJI Phantom 4
- iPhone 6

tevek · Apr 1, 2018

I had similar problems with my iPhone 6+ with various warnings and a screen littered with inteference etc. Try going into transmission settings and set your rate to 4mbps and select a custom channel that appears to be free from noise. That and making sure every other app/screen is shut down and 'wiped' from the display. You should at least see an improvement and maybe shoot in anything less than 4K. The go app sucks a lot of life out of most devices and you need to reduce the workload on your phone.

RémyHeli · Apr 1, 2018

Can you try ;
- Set iPhone in Airplane mode before flying
- Check enough storage available in iPhone
- Without screen recording to see if makes any difference
- in go App disable video cache recording to your iPhone
- in iPhone settings disable option allowing apps to run in background (some might eat some resources)
- any other electronic device with you, i.e medical?

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

Screen recording kills most of the cpu especially on an iPhone 6 Plus which is s four year old model. Don’t do that.

WV. Rootman · Apr 1, 2018

The settings on 4 mbps and airplane mode cleared mine up. I left it on auto channel.

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

All of these are signs of an underpowered cpu. You are seeing the Cpu choke on the quantity of the data DJI is shoving into those older iOS devices. Yes lowering the video feed bandwidth helps but degraded the signal. Ultimately and better processor will work. I bought a used iPad Pro and all my iPad mini problems went away.

Finase · Apr 1, 2018

ravedog said:
All of these are signs of an underpowered cpu. You are seeing the Cpu choke on the quantity of the data DJI is shoving into those older iOS devices. Yes lowering the video feed bandwidth helps but degraded the signal. Ultimately and better processor will work. I bought a used iPad Pro and all my iPad mini problems went away.

Any suggestions as to what I can use that will work better? Something cost effective?

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

Cost effective? Don’t know what you consider cost effective. Personally, I use a 9.7” iPad Pro. It’s great. Zero problems. Plus I use it for other things as well. All my iPad mini problems went away when I finally got something that didn’t choke on DJIs ever demanding software. This is a DJI problem as they keep moving the goal posts. Last year I went from a mini 2 to a mini 4 then when that started having problems, I just went pro. Others here will swear by this and that. If you are an Apple guy then go pro. It’s also an incredibly useful tablet as well. If you could care less about Apple, then there are people here that will point you to whatever Chinese knockoff off the day they like.

RémyHeli · Apr 1, 2018

You might want try my tips first. Then consider more poweful one. They aren’t myth.

Finase · Apr 1, 2018

RémyHeli said:
You might want try my tips first. Then consider more poweful one. They aren’t myth.

I tried flying with your suggestions and some I looked up online to improve iPhone speed and it worked a lot better. It still flickers lines on the screen at times, but no where near as much as before. The radio channel quality still shows as Poor, though.. not sure whats up with that.

I guess the issue is definitely my iPhone and it's overloaded CPU, going to have to find an alternative

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

Know anyone with a newer iPhones be. Try that first. Borrow theirs.

RémyHeli · Apr 1, 2018

Thanks for feedback. May I suggest you re-initialize iPhone to factory settings. You will loose all password and wifi etc but Can resolve . Also watching battery consuption can tell what’s going on with your device. I have iPad mini 4 cellular (without sim card) : works perfect with latest iOS, firmwares: RC, batteries, craft (.0700) and latest GO4 app. Finally.. (as of today)

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

iPad 6 released last week. Same A10 processor as the iPhone 7 Plus. No better iPad until you get to the pros. Cost? 329.

ravedog · Apr 1, 2018

You could simply buy one, try it, problems gone? Keep it. Still there? Return it.

Finase · Apr 1, 2018

RémyHeli said:
Thanks for feedback. May I suggest you re-initialize iPhone to factory settings. You will loose all password and wifi etc but Can resolve . Also watching battery consuption can tell what’s going on with your device. I have iPad mini 4 cellular (without sim card) : works perfect with latest iOS, firmwares: RC, batteries, craft (.0700) and latest GO4 app. Finally.. (as of today)

I would try but I don't really want to go through the hassle of recovering everything from a reset.

Finase · Apr 1, 2018

ravedog said:
You could simply buy one, try it, problems gone? Keep it. Still there? Return it.

Fair enough, thanks for the help to all

antnyp85 · Jun 15, 2018

I had my P4 sent out to DJI due to an issue with a firmware upgrade back in December of last year, and had ignored the fact that I was experiencing this issue, because honestly I hadn't flown it much since... (I've been playing with my Spark more). Today, I decided to fly my P4 and had the warning about poor radio channel quality. I waited for my home point to be updated notice (had enough satellites), and started flying. I got a good about 2000 feet out and it 380 feet high and it disconnected. Prior to me sending it out for that firmware upgrade (the one that nobody wanted), I had never had a disconnect from my drone or this poor radio channel quality issue. I've flown that distance before at this same location without any problems. I just emailed DJI to see what they say. I use an iPad Pro (9.7 inch version). I tried the suggestions listed above after this incident, but I'm still getting the poor radio channel warning. (Cleared cache, closed everything out, set it to 4mb, etc).

antnyp85 · Jul 12, 2018

antnyp85 said:
I had my P4 sent out to DJI due to an issue with a firmware upgrade back in December of last year, and had ignored the fact that I was experiencing this issue, because honestly I hadn't flown it much since... (I've been playing with my Spark more). Today, I decided to fly my P4 and had the warning about poor radio channel quality. I waited for my home point to be updated notice (had enough satellites), and started flying. I got a good about 2000 feet out and it 380 feet high and it disconnected. Prior to me sending it out for that firmware upgrade (the one that nobody wanted), I had never had a disconnect from my drone or this poor radio channel quality issue. I've flown that distance before at this same location without any problems. I just emailed DJI to see what they say. I use an iPad Pro (9.7 inch version). I tried the suggestions listed above after this incident, but I'm still getting the poor radio channel warning. (Cleared cache, closed everything out, set it to 4mb, etc).

DJI wants me to send them a "video of it happening." Been busy to do so... I sent them screen shots of what's showing up on my DJI GO 4 App, and am waiting for a reply. Getting really annoyed. Wish I had an answer for this... Flew my P4 yesterday and it had the same issue again, then flew my Spark in the same spot... No issues with the Spark.

Attached are what my Phantom 4 showed, and then the 3rd one is my Spark... The Spark showed no issues.

Clek · Dec 24, 2018

Dear All, I`m facing out the same problem. Do anybody have already find any solution to fix it?

Finase · Dec 24, 2018

Clek said:
Dear All, I`m facing out the same problem. Do anybody have already find any solution to fix it?

I ended up getting the most recent generation iPad and it solved most of my problems with the video quality. As for the update problems I had, I think it was an easy fix with playing around with downgrading and upgrading on my PC.