>Worth noting that the range of the remote is significantly less than claimed in the marketing materials, which is not really surprising because they claim 4km (!) and it dropped out on me at ~200 meters.
This isn't really true. While radio links can of course perform poorly or unexpectedly at times, DJI's actually does deliver on their promises. It's quite incredible what they're doing with range of the control & video systems on 2.4 & 5.8Ghz actually. Not sure which model you have but the 2.4Ghz one will perform far better, though 5.8 is plenty fine in decent operating conditions. As you saw though, just because it can go 4km in normal conditions doesn't mean it won't ever hiccup for a variety of reasons (noise floor, obstructions, orientation, etc).
Seriously though, they must have a very high gain antenna to get 4km range at 2.4GHz with streaming video at unlicensed power levels, so there probably is a very specific antenna and controller orientation you are supposed to maintain to achieve that range.
I got it to go 2.5 km away on a very long beach, so it always had line-of-sight. It didn't lose control, so I imagine it could have gone farther (but probably wouldn't have enough battery to come back).
This isn't really true. While radio links can of course perform poorly or unexpectedly at times, DJI's actually does deliver on their promises. It's quite incredible what they're doing with range of the control & video systems on 2.4 & 5.8Ghz actually. Not sure which model you have but the 2.4Ghz one will perform far better, though 5.8 is plenty fine in decent operating conditions. As you saw though, just because it can go 4km in normal conditions doesn't mean it won't ever hiccup for a variety of reasons (noise floor, obstructions, orientation, etc).