The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Before I even get started, I think 2.4 Ghz technology is a great new facet of the RC. Yes I have flown 2.4 and own Spektrum and Hitec 2.4 gear. Just wanted to make that clear in advance.....


Does it seem like certain flyers at your club field have what I call "The 2.4 Attitude"? Have you noticed that some pilots have adopted a holier than thou, elitist, or an above the law mentality just because they use 2.4?

I'm talking about the guys who practically never stop flying except to re-fuel because they are on 2.4 and never stop to think about common courtesy and that other fliers are waiting for a pilot station. I've actually witnessed guys "hot fueling" their turbine jet while it's running so they can run back out and get their pilot station back before some other pilot can use it!

I'm talking about those who don't think they need to have a proper preflight because nobody's gonna be on their channel.

I'm also talking about the ones who get downright nasty to an event CD because that CD wants to have all radios impounded regardless of what frequency they are on as matter of safe practice in case there are registered pilots who are flying both 72MHz and 2.4 GHz

And last but not least, the event organizers who make their events "2.4 GHz ONLY" I mean, really, you can't run an impound anymore? Isn't more because you're just lazy, rather than saftey minded?

It can't just be me. I think as 2.4 Ghz users, we don't stop having to be responsible, courteous, or in some cases SAFE, just because we don't have to go grab "the pin" anymore.

Wanna share your "2.4 Attitude" story here? [8D]

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Our club has all members put their membership cards on the frequency board, no matter what channel or 2.4 you are flying. We don't have any issue with the hot pitting, but when our club has an event, the CD makes the rules and you follow them or go home. Transmitter impound is still a good idea as some have 2.4 and some of the older frequency transmitters and an impound can eliminate any confusion. It sounds like your club needs to address the hot pitting issue and limit the amount of time that you can use a pilot's station if there is a crowd. Good Luck, Dave

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

I have not seen that in any of the clubs that I belong to. While there are fewer and fewer non 2.4 pilots, those that choose to remain on 72 are not looked down upon in any manner. Sometimes they get kidded a bit. Questions about having indoor plumbing and those new fangled e-lect-trick candles and such, but it is all in good fun.

My large power club no longer requires badges for 2.4 pilots. 72 has to pin up still for control. Everyone else has to display their badge openly. Pinned to their nose or other places in plain sight.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Oh and just for the record, these cases were not observed at my home club (other than the mean spirited replies our CD got for trying to enforce the impound at an event last year), but rather another larger club field located in a public park that is to the south.

I also am a member there, but with it being a public facility that techically doesn't require AMA except for the club's sanctioned events, it can get to be like the wild west out there. It's where I often see the worst examples of the "Tude".

I don't want this to reflect negatively on my home club by mistake. :eek:

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

You will find that those same people will look down on others for a variety of reasons. The amount more they spent equals the amount more they should get to fly. You fly smaller glow planes and not gas like them, you dont have a custom made field box, you hand start your planes, you use a starter, and so on ad infinitum. Self absorbed and small minded people trying to act big.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Nope. Haven't noticed. We just had our club picnic and everyone played nice. Trying to remember if I saw an antenna . . . and I think we were all on 2.4gHz. Though the pin board was open.

We wait for an opening on the flightline and everyone seems to go 12 to 15 minutes. We're all too old to stand longer without a rest. :D. There was a low-hanging cloud of foamies and a top cover unbrella of gas and glow. We all had fun.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Just worked the flight line at Bomber Field for 2 days. Over 100 pilots, mostly 2.4. All transmitters were impounded. Never heard a squawk.
http://www.bomberfieldusa.com/index01.htm

cfircav8r, I like your attitude. Just great. In your signature, 2 more that I like are 1. the airspeed you don't have and the best: 2. A SECOND AGO! :D

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

The basin is a circus,,, you're gunna run into Clowns
Stay up there in the hills where it's safe ;)

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Never an issue with 2.4 Ghz at our club. I'm one of the few that still flies on 72 mhz and everyone still pins their badge to the frequency board. We just created a new spot on the board for 2.4 Ghz pilots. No issues with flight station crowding either, and we get quite a few people out on the weekends. Its self-regulating mostly because people know that in 15 minutes the crowd of planes in the air will run out of fuel/battery power and they'll have the sky all to themselves :D

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

hmmmm, not sure how to respond here...

Sure perhaps there are some folk who believe they have a god given right to do what they like because they have 2.4. I'm sure they also the guys who throw money at a problem and are always willing to tell everyone how much they soent on the clubor a plane or or or...
You get those types everywhere.

But lets address each issue separately:
<u>Tx Impound:
</u>These were created to control transmission from the flying field in order to prevent two or more flyers on the same frequency from "shooting down" others through irresponsible Tx activation. It's a FM problem. It is not a 2.4 PPM FHSS problem. So why should a 2.4 Tx be impounded? for what technical reason? There is none so I don't believe its an issue. Do you hand in your mobile phone when you board a plane?

<u>Hogging the flight Line

</u>Ok well lets be honest here. If someone lands and refuels and gets back into the air without considering others on his frequency then he/she is a selfish git. If a 2.4flyer is hogging the flight line.....oh wait how can you hog the flight line if you are not jamming the frequency?! Huh. Hogging the frequency is a FM problem. Does the club only allow x amount of flyers in the air at once? Never heard of this. Common sense rules. If it gets too crowed, land or don't take off. Why all the rules. Its supposed to be a fun hobby

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Many clubs limit the number of flyers in the air at the same time. That's to reduce the workload on the pilot and spotter. It also makes it easier to communicate between flyers. Transmitter impounds can be used for a lot more than frequency control of the non-spread-spectrum systems...sometimes, it's used to keep the selfish, irresponsible gits from running their models excessivly in the pits. It also helps with ground control of models ready to go. You really don't want a large gaggle of models running about on the ground and in the air. Having your model airfield have the same traffic problems as O'Hare ruins the fun of the day.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

its really not a club attitude where i fly, but more of an individual one. I still use both...certain planes i fly on 72 and others on 2.4

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Four, unless we're doing combat.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Bad apple in every crowd mate. ;)

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

I've heard nothing but great things about Bomber Field for almost fifteen years now. I would have loved to have flown there when I lived in Houston in '98. Just didn't have the time then, I was instructing 10-12 hrs a day.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Over here we don't have this problem. even in clubs of over 200 members, theres seems to be decent use of common sense. Too crowed,wait till the air clears,and no correlation to type of radio or transmission strategy being used.

At my club however I would love a Tx impound to stop those in pits engine tuners!! Darn nitric gassers

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

I don't think this is a 2.4 issue, it sounds more like your assigning it to 2.4 users because you have a beef with them.

I will never understood impounds for 2.4, that really sounds like people clinging to old ways. CDs who require impounds generally don't seem to understand 2.4 and just "want be safe".

People hogging a station? Do FM radios only last 8 minutes before you have to recharge?? I see it all the time with people who can fly around near idle for 20-30 minutes on a single tank of fuel. Thats not a result of 2.4.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Lots of them locally are that way. Four stations. In fact, all Iknow of in the county and surrounding area are that way. We occasionally put up more, but it's rare.

In fact, we usually have only one or two in the air at a time just because we're laid back and there to relax.

Icould keep several of my models up for over 20 minutes if I cared to (by running low and just tooling around). Icould with 72 mHz - same models just now upgraded to 2.4gHz. If guys are hogging the stations you need a by-law against refueling or exchanging batteries while on the flight-line. Make 'em go back to the pits and surrender the pin (or position).

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

There's probably the source of it right there. For some reason, clubs not requiring AMA and being full of jerks seems to go together. Call it an outlaw mentality, entitlement mentality, irresponsible mentality, or whatever else you want to label it. But it seems that every thread I read about a non-AMA club has some story about a group in it that doesn't like rules. That's probably why they want to be in a non-AMA club. I kinda figure people like that don't belong in the hobby, but that's just me.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

I've flown at several outlaw fields and of them all only two were made up of mature reasonable flyers. The rest were made up of the guys that got kicked out of the other fields. The bad fields guys were flying there because they had nowhere else to go. The good fields guys were flying there because it was convienient. One field was started by a group of guys that learned to fly from Mark Smith (Marks Models) at the field behind his hobby shop. They continued to fly there for years after he left, and never needed to start a club because everyone that flew there respected each other. It only stopped when the owner needed the land.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Where he's talking about is an Open to the public City park AMA isn't required to fly there, But there are also clubs that use the park, the clubs do require AMA for membership and for Sanctioned events

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

I guess we have a great club; 47 members and on any one day there'll by around 20 of us at the flying field, max. Of that we often have around 10 planes in the sky at once, all flying either 2.4 or 35mhZ or in our case54Mhz. To date we've had only two mid airs and that was simply due to a young newbie with an attitude. He nevers calls for take off or landing, just does his own thing. Even brings his dog to the field, unrestrained. He flies FM.
Other than that no issues, and that because of respect. The blokes all know what planes cost and how much time goes into them. so we steer clear of each other in the air, well clear.

we have a few guys who operate their throttles from a dual rate toggle switch; idle and full bore. when they takeoff we all head over to the braai (barbeque) area for a soda and sausage.
when they land, the rest of us take to the air again.
If we have heli's in the air, we land, give the ceiling fans some airspace.
When the big aerobats come out, we land. no sense having a mid air with one of those.

Consideration starts with people, not with rules

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

At our field, I haven't noticed any attitude at all regarding FM or 2.4Ghz, we have pin boards all along the benches in the pits, and the FM flyers pin up, really no problems with that. The only time there is a problem is usually when new people come to the field that don't know about pinning up. Our field is in a state park, so anyone can fly there.

The attitudes I DO get though, are the 'I fly a Turbine-giant scale-gasser-and you don't, so i'm better than you' guys. Most of them aren't members of our club though, we really have a pretty good bunch of guys/gals in our club.
I fly only electrics, and my largest planes have around a 65" W/S, but those are the planes I choose to fly. I just ignore those guys and go fly.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Well I have it. The 2.4 attitude that is.
I feel sorry for you if you don't have the money to convert to 2.4.
For those that have the means, I think you are ignorant of the facts or just plain stubborn.
72 served us for many years but the fact is its obsolete technology.

RE: The 2.4 Attitude - Does your field have it?
 

Hmmm, well, if you read the first sentence of the inital post, I thought I was pretty clear that I do use, own, and fly 2.4 GHz equipment. In fact I use both DSM2 and Hitec FHSS in addition to 72Mhz and 50Mhz gear. You really wouldn't want to use 50Mhz as it requires the user to pass a test for a HAM Radio license in addition to with using a loathesome frequency pin.

Unfortunatley, short sighted statements claiming ignorance and slapping an "Obsolete" label on FM modulation are not good for the hobby and in fact could undermine efforts by the AMA to make it clear to the FCC that there are many thousands of users on non 2.4 Ghz bands such as 72 Mhz. Perhaps you aren't aware, but with the proposed National Broadband Plan, the FCC is looking at the whole spectrum (not to be confused with Spektrum/JR) in an effort to grab the necessary space needed to implement it.

The AMA just got through putting together a response to a FCC NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) comment request regarding the continued use of 72, 75, and 27 MHz by the hobby community and the manufacturers who still market a large amount of RTF systems on those bands. How many 2.4GHz planes, helis, and cars do you see on the shelves at YOUR local Walmart?

In regards to FM as an "obsolete" technology, I'm guessing you wouldn't be lowering yourself to listen to FM or (GASP!) AM radio at home or in the car. If you think you're elite because you listen to "HD radio" you are still listening to FM, it's just a dedicated digital subcarrier of the parent analog broadcast. If you have satellite radio, the receivers for cars often use an "obsolete" low power FM carrier that you can tune your radio to in order to hear it.

So if we were to have it your way, many many thousands of modelers would be forced to buy new equipment that they indeed may not be able to afford, which in turn will eliminate the incentive for 2.4 manufacturers to price their products to compete with FM gear with the same functional capabilities. Manufacturers of toy grade merchandise would have to chose whether to offer their products in 2.4 at a higher price, or just avoid the whole problem by not selling them in the US at all. I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be considered to have a positive effect on the market as a whole.

However, I must thank you for your comments as I had totally forgotten this aspect of the 2.4 attitude and it can now become a part of this discussion.

I think you should be careful of those you would so quickly call ignorant when it's clear that you didn't take the time to consider the facts yourself. However, we are looking for our next governor here in California. With that kind of attitude, I consider you more than qualified for the gig!