Hossfly

Maybe it takes a little work, Troll. however my own opinion says post #2 is not the most stupid. While Huber and I don't agree on much, I can see where he is coming from in his reply to post #1 which has little understanding of the frequency spectrum available to RC model flying.

NOW IN THE REAL WORLD, compare the Park Fliers versus AMA Members to the week-end fisherman and the BASS -- MASTERS. In both cases the first named far outnumber the 2nd named.
There are eons of old radios available for the PFs, the PF + sport crashers, etc etc. There is no way these people will all ever be educated or give a tinker's dam about AMA, FCC, frequency control or whatever.
So some local badge wearer grabs some equipment and you go down and get it back with a promise to be a better boy forever after. NBFD.

FCC That is a real JOKE. Take a look at what FCC proposes to do to CBS for the display of a boob here in the Super Bowl this weekend. They could fine CBS the mighty sum of $27,000.oo. Again NBFD especially for a game with a commercial every second the ball went out of play and those commercials were 2.5 MILLION YANKEE DOLLARS FOR 30 SECONDS, which is about $83,300+ PER SECOND. Like a $27,000 fine is more than chump change![:-]

OTOH FCC could easily take the RC freqs. and do away with them. There are not enough $$$$ in the business or voters on the fields to make any difference. AMA is scared sh_tless of the Hobby Industry and the HI is only after the short term cash cow toys. FCC could easily return it all to 27mhz and it wouldn't make CNN evening news. But why bother with the small potatoes, when no glory is forthcoming?

Huber said to #1 that no division etc., would happen and I predict that Huber spoke the truth.

the troll

Yeah... right. Somehow we can get a twelve year old to search 28 square miles for an "established"(AMAor OTHERWISE!~) flying field. Oh I forgot...if he reads a little note all will be well...give me a break!

A&P Mechanic

Pete913,
I think you and I are on the same page with this issue. Except for the FFTypehard that is mucking up the works here, there are two distinct problems:
The park flyers are ignorant to "real" R/C aircraft-but only because they thought it was a neat thing to be able to fly something they bought at WalMart. In their, case being ignorant is not their fault, because they might not know the "real" R/C stuff is in hobby shops. Lots of people pass through WalMart, and fewer through a hobby shop. They got hooked on R/C at the wrong store. Too bad. However, I thought that the R/C "toys" had a 500' range maximum.
Now, if the "real park flyer" purchased his stuff at a hobby shop, there is no reason that he should be shooting down other airplanes, because the LHS would have educated him as to the local club, flying field, and of course- our Golden Knight- The AMA! ( gotcha Huber ) Thereby eliminating any possibility for conflict with other R/C operations.

See how easy this is? All we need to do is post a sheet to all of the $30 arf electrics at the discount stores, that has the local club's name and information on it, and hope they act on the newly found contacts.

Ahh, Utopia! Gus.

FHHuber

The truth is... that IS the only power we have.... NONE.

NOW you finally figured it out. We can't stop the problem.

There is no LAW that says the kid can't take his park flyer out and fly it on the neighbors lot just 200 yards from the established RC flying site.

You can't send a cop to stop the kid from shooting down whoever is unlucky enough to be on the same frequency.

You can only HOPE that the kid reads the label... and you can only hope that he looks around and says...." there are other models flying over there... maybe this ain't a good idea to fly here." (but he won't... Instead he'll think: "Wow... I wonder if Ican do that with my plane!")

And there ain't a THING you or I or the AMA can do about it.

And any attempt to change it... is only going to result in more of those "stupid rules" you like to say we don't need to follow.

******
Thats assuming one thing and its a poor assumption. He bought it from a hobby shop that bothers to ask questions.

You just click the buttons on the Tower Website... a package shows up at your door. When did they ask if you knew what the heck you were doing? (never)

You go into half the hobby shops that still exiest... the kid behind the counter is just as clueless as the guy buying the thing for his kid.

abel_pranger

Something missing here, and it does matter. AMA will not charter a club within 3 miles of another AMA club's flying field. They don't even want to know about non-AMA flying sites. I asked my AVP about getting the geo coordinates of one such field in the AMA database - reply was the system does not accomodate that. The great ogre has his head in the sand re this situation - seems the position is you can only be interfered with by another AMA member.

Abel

mongo

My Feedback: (15)

well able,
their thinking is, in thew event of a major catastropy from interferance from the non ama site, they want to be able to say, "we never knew it was there." with a straight face.

course, i don't think that will absolve them of responsibility in court.

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

I wonder how much the taxpayers will end up paying for the "investigation" the FCC plans for that one![] Kind of funny that they will be fining them for showing on TV what every kid sees "up close" in the hospital very shortly after birth!

FHHuber

Well... Can't really blame the AMA for not keeping track of non-AMA clubs. How many non-AMA clubs are going to send thier field locations in to the AMA? (2? out of how many hundred?)

Part of that problem is the old AMA vs SFA "wars" which are somewhat being continued with the UMA. The competing organizations just aren't going to cooperate.

AMA isn't going to put all the UMA fields in its database... and UMA isn't going to put the AMA fields in thiers.

Sport_Pilot

All R/C toys at WalMart are on 27 Mhz and are no threat to our 72 Mhz band.

pete913

As I understand it, the FCC can not only fine CBS $27000, it can also fine every affiliate station who rebroadcasted the program the same amount. I doubt if most of them would consider that chump change.

lkaras1

My Feedback: (20)

Not all park flyers come from toy stores Some flyer's buy them fom hobby shops. Is it the lhs to make sure they know about the different channels ? Maybe. At the least they can tell them. Some of the park flyers cost as much if not more than some of our nitro planes,fly faster, better etc. I know a bunch of park flyers that have no problems flying together, taking turns etc. Why dont they fly at a AMA field ? It's really not that far. Ill tell you what the most common thing they say. " 50 bucks to join the club that has the field and another 58 for the AMA yea right " Do i blame them not really. For 100 bucks they can buy another plane and have something to show for it I guess. Yes where i live the park is diffent than most its a small town and everyone knows everyone so maybe we are at a advantage. The 19.95 intro doesn't interest them at all they just laugh. So how can the AMA convince them to join?

Sport_Pilot

Even at the local level that's chump change. A station has millions in revenue some even billions. So at worst that would be like a $10 parking ticket to you and me.

Sport_Pilot

With the 72 Mhz models that info is in the instructions.

Hossfly

According to local Ch. 11 Houston CBS station, there are some 300 such stations. At 27,000 per that is 8,100,000 all paid by only just over 3 of those 30 second slots.

I don't think anyone will go bankrupt.

FHHuber

The information about FCC regs related to the radio are in the instructions for the radio.

The little $20 models that include the 27 mhz radios... have instructions that include a note about potential interference from other mdel flyers. (that 500 ft range transmitter can interfere with another on the same frequency at up to 1/2 mile... Its 500 ft of possible control of the model... the radio waves don't stop.)

Putting the information about interferencein the package covers the liability of the manufacturer (and the retailer) for informing the customer of that safety issue. Its not thier fault the customer is a 8 yr old kid who doesn't bother to read it. (when the box says that the thing is for 10 yr or older kids...)

Look in the instructions for ARF models... you may be suprised to find that many have a 16 yr or older recommendation. Does anyone follow that when thier 9 yr old kid wants to fly RC? Amazing what you find when you actually read the directions....

pete913

I don't see my local CBS affiliate getting one dime of all that money. But back to cases here. OK, so irresponsible or ignorant people are gonna fly these things whenever, wherever they want, and to heck with what we think about it. So what's the answer? People say you can't legislate responsibility. Maybe not, but you can sure as heck legislate some hefty penalties for those who act irresponsibly. I hear this stuff all the time about the FCC not being able to do anything about it because they're underfunded, blah blah blah. IT'S THEIR JOB. Heck, I think I'm underfunded too. That doesn't cut a lot of ice with my boss if I don't do my job, and believe it or not, WE are the FCC's boss. If they can spend their time looking to prosecute CBS, I think they can do their JOB, and uphold their own frequency allocations and rules about not interfering with signals, etc, which are spelled out to the letter in their own rules. Either that or its time for some serious squealing to our congressmen. Maybe some people think its silly to worry about such things, but sooner or later, some incident will happen. It'll reflect badly on all of us as modelers and fliers, and the publics opinion won't differentiate between those who play by the rules, and those who don't.

abel_pranger

Pete-
Okay, so you take the matter to FCC. Your complaint is that some people are flying on frequencies allocated to flying model airplanes that interfere with your flying
model airplanes.
Do you really not see a problem with this?

Abel

FHHuber

NOW someone has stated it simply and clearly.

The Park Flyer has just as much right to fly on the RC frequency as the 1/3 scale IMAC plane (or the turbine or the .40 size trainer...)

Now the guys that supposedly were using aircraft frequencies for boats... technically they can get in trouble. Practically they won't.

There was a big ruckus (on one of these RC discussion boards) about the Battle Bots (as seen on TV) making use of aircraft frequencies... no one cared.

pete913

Sure the park flier has the same right to fly, If you think I dispute that, you need to do some re reading of my posts. I just happen to think that they also have the RESPONSIBILITY to fly in a safe and public friendly manner, which means doing it at an R/C flying field with some kind of frequency control so they're not interfering with someone else's signal, not just any old place. To say anything different says to me that you don't have a problem with me showing up, say a half mile from you while you're flying, turning on my transmitter on your frequency and shooting you down. Care to explain in detail to me just how doing that is somehow different or more acceptable than park fliers doing it just out of sight of an approved R/C flying site? Or model cars or boats using aircraft frequencies? No one cared if R/C boats or battle bots, whatever, were using aircraft frequencies? I can assure you that this type of activity, one day, will cause something to happen that all of us will care very much about, because the public isn't gonna know or care if some bozo a half mile from my field shot me down, and my plane went through someones living room window and killed them. All the public is gonna do is start screaming to ban ALL R/C flying at that point.

Sport_Pilot

Didn't the FCC or someone write them a letter and the production company then insisted that ground frequencies be used?

Sport_Pilot

So far the public seems to see this as a freak accident. But this could happen, especially with a really large giant scale aircraft, or maybe a twin turbine that burns down a large building.

Till the FCC or someone gets concerned about it, what are you going to do? I suggest that the AMA try to get some of those voice pager channels that are hardly used these day, then dedicate them to parkflyers, then the manufactures only use those channels unless the modeler presents his AMA card. This could even be done with our present channels if you could convince manufactures to stick with say 10 specific channels and the giant and turbine guy could avoid those channels.

abel_pranger

What I responded to was your rant about FCC not doing their job. FCC rules nowhere specify what constitutes an acceptable R/C flying venue, so there is no distinction between just any old place and YOUR image of what an R/C flying field is.

That's nonsense. Intentionally causing interference is illegal, and I'm sure you understand that.

Doesn't require a lot of detail. The park flier just out of sight of an 'approved' R/C flying site, whatever that is, has no more responsibility for avoiding potential interference with fliers at that site than they have for avoiding interfering with him. Unless he violating some local ordinance or trespassing, his flying site is just as 'approved' as your AMA chartered flying site that your club has occupied since the Good brothers' first flights.

You could well be right about that. What do you think are the chances of preventing it from happening by trying to get legislation enacted and enforced to control park fliers as you would have them controlled?

My preferred approach to avoiding such conflicts and the potential consequences you envision is to invite the park flier to share my flying site, and the R/C frequencies. What is preventing me from doing that is the control exerted over my flying site by AMA, i.e. the strings attached to the club charter that mandate all users of the club flying site be AMA members. AMA's response to that so far has been to exhort us to sell the park fliers on AMA and there will be peace in the world in our time. We'll see.

Abel

fritzthecat

My Feedback: (4)

The problem lies not with the Parkflyer, the 'Real Plane' pilot or with boats/battlebots on air frequencies. The problem stems from using a 1930s technology, crystal controlled, interference prone, non errorcorrecting radio system. After broadband over powerlines becomes a reality, then all the current radios will be obsolete and virtually unuseable anyway. It is high time the radio manufacturers, the FCC and the AMA get together to develop a new, state of the art - and much safer RF link technology. Until then both the parkflyer and the TOC pilots are at the mercy of radio propagation and dumb luck.

Fritz

abel_pranger

Just mulling over how some park fliers that do understand their rights, responsibilities, and the law might respond when they are told that their activity is creating a hazard for 'real' R/C modelers:

Draft Letter

Dear Officers of Podunk R/C Fliers, AMA Club 456-
We are a group of modelers that fly our park fliers at several schoolyard, parking lot, and private acreage locations within a mile or so of your AMA club field. A person from our group was approached by a member of your club and told he could not fly there because it could cause interference resulting in loss of control of one your large, heavy models and possible cause serious injury to someone. We certainly would not want that to happen. Please take notice that we are currently using 72 mHz channels 16, 23, 36, 37 and 54, and advise your members not to use them. That should not cause you undue problems, as that leaves 45 channels to choose from, unless our group expands and needs more. When that happens we will let you know what additional channels we are using.
Have a good day,

<unsigned>

Some Informed, Safe and Responsible Park Fliers

cc: Mr. Carl Maroney, AMA Insurance Department

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Good idea ;-)