Building upon what @ROBERT-JUDD did in his testing, we made a shield out of a tinfoil solder cup to isolate the GPS antenna from the rest of the drone. This resulted in an almost immediate track of 10+ satellites. The EMI problem is real. We are now working on designing a 3D printable cone similar to what the cup is doing that we plan to paint with an EMI coating that will be our more rugged long term solution.
ModalAi should be providing clear disclaimers about this problem before people go and spend thousands on this drone!