ttoks

g'day to those of you who remember me, when i first became a memeber on here in 2007, this forum (meaning RCU in general) had a massive following of people, two or three pages per day of replies was pretty standard int he traxxas forum alone, now i'm seeing post's on the first page that are a month old.

is RC dead? or is there just a new forum for RC's?.

MiamizFinest

I joined around this time as well and remember seeing the same thing, slowly but surely I've seen less and less people on the forum. Even looking at simply the amount of members online at any given time was impressive, now not so much. Things really took a nose dive towards the end of 2008 beginning 2009 both on the forum(IMO) locally defiantly. Hobby shops closed, tracks lost its club racers and local hang outs where dead. Lately for the past 2+ish years alot new people and old ones have started showing up at the local hang outs and club races which is good. This forum how ever seems pretty stale, compared to 2007. Is not only here it's most other rc related forums in general.

Either way im, glad to be here and happy RCU is still around.

Foxy

The forum has had a lot of problems and lost a lot of members to other forums over the last few years, sad, but it'll pick back up again after the big revamp which is coming soon. I hope.

ttoks

i hope so, RCU hasn't changed much in the last 6 year's visually, i think an easier to use PM system, more atractive forum layout (mostly easier on the eye's, and easier to navigate)

really thinking alot of the smaller forum's would be better off merging with RCU or another major RC forum, it's good having a mass of information in one place, ATM it is fairly frustrating having to go between 6 or 7 different forums looking for information.

cenracer1

I've been a member since 2005 and I've been on and off this forum at times for a while. I wouldn't say its because its stale or dead.. honestly I got tired of all the bashing here that I just don't see as much on other sites. I can't blame anyone in particular, it just gets old. I own alot of Traxxas product and on this site that could lead to bashing from fanboys of other products which isn't tolerated on alot of other sites. I get most of my Traxxas info from the Traxxas Forum.. but that has its own issues.. you can't mention any other products especially anything from HK or China without getting a warning. If it weren't for the information, I wouldn't bother.. That being said I'm still here. I've always liked this site and especially the members.. they are an older group who collectively have more information and experience than most of the other sites. I've been doing this stuff since the late 70's with airplanes and the later 80's with ground based r/c.. I just can't be bothered with the BS... OK... rant over.. Sorry

As for r/c in general I think its still going very well. I'm not a fan of short course and still don't see the big attraction although I own 2 Slashes.. go figure.. I go to the track occasionally and when I'm there its still a good turnout on a sunday or even a practice day during the week. I run with a group on saturday nights and while its an informal gathering we always have at least 8 or 10 there and on a good night even more. We just picked up a few new members as well. I'm also friends with the owner of a local hobby shop and when he's not complaining about something he does tell me business is not bad even with the internet sales. He has just about anything you could need in a pinch and for that he has a loyal following.. So the way I see it even with the economy being the way it is its still going..

fastmaxxcooper

My Feedback: (5)

you can see what has happened to rc just by the prices of cars, new and used. When I got into the hobby in 1998, 1/8 buggies were getting big, and it was unobtainable for me. Now competition quality kits are available for $250 new and $100 used. Now its short course and anything brushless that holds its value! I've also definitely seen the local scene fall in the past 5 years.

ttoks

where i live there used to be a turnout of 5-15 guys during the week for bash session's, informal and not planned, we all just ended up at the bash spot, now we have no one turn up at all, once i got into motorbikes my rcing ground to a halt and is jsut starting up again now (of the 7 nitro engines i have from back then, that were in smick working ouder when i sealed em up and put them in storage, only one isn't locked up from corrosion) but just in general, there's seems to be very little traffic everywhere.

cenracer1

its most certainly different wherever you are. I won't say its great where I live, but its still going well. Like I said where I run we will get on a bad night 6 racers.. On a good night plenty more. These are saturday night when we could be doing other stuff and yet they still show up.. Sometimes its not such a bad thing that more aren't into the hobby. my biggest concern is govt regulations effecting where I can run my cars. I'm careful not to upset people but others may not be.. so less is more at least where I am concerned.

I still remember what I paid for my Kyosho Burns and USA1 nitro crusher back in the late 80's.. They were around $700 each!!! If you think about it the prices have come way down and the quality has only gotten better. Sure you can spend much more on a race buggy, but you can get a decent running OFNA for around $300 that will probably outrun the old Burns..

ttoks

at least the secondhand market is ripe for the picking's, plenty of modified revo's for sale these days for under $300

but alas, i'm currently in the process of getting all mine going again, hopefully the servo's and batteries are still good, if so i should have them all going again in about a week

cenracer1

yes it is.. Thankfully I don't need anything and honestly the Revo does nothing for me.. Not sure why as its a great truck. I guess my Tmaxx does what I want and don't see the need for another big truck. My main focus is really touring cars, heli's and planes.. I own a ton of stuff.. too much really, but at least I have a vehicle for any occasion LOL.. Good luck with your batteries and resurecting your fleet..

pritch

I've drifted on and off the r/c forums over the years, really it depends on what else is going on.

No doubt it's much quieter than when I joined. I think a bit more could be done to get the hobby opened up to the public in general.

t-max97

My Feedback: (9)

I think that is alot of it,it's a fairly large hobby but for some reason the only people that know about it are the ones in it, if you go take a fast hobby grade rc to anywhere public there will be plenty of people that have never seen one but are interested, doesn't really make sense but that's how it is lol.

ttoks

hmm that makes sence, when i first started with nitro RC's, i was the only one in the area, i ran at a local BMX track, after about a month of running solo more and more people started showing up.

pritch

As a general rule, whenever I take my r/c's anywhere where there's a lot of folks around, e.g. to the beaches when there's a public holiday on, or wherever, they generate a lot of interest. I had my Revo bouncing along a pebble beach recently and when I turned around there were 30-40 people stopped to watch it from over the railings.

I went to a vintage steam rally and auto fair a couple of weeks back at my nearest race circuit. There was a central arena where the steam loco's were displayed. Mid way through the day during an interval a local model airplane club brought a bunch of Savages into the arena and a single ramp, and started bashing around, mostly into each other! Driving standards were pretty average (couldn't believe these same guys had perfect control of VERY expensive planes [8D]) but again, when I looked around dozens of people had gathered to watch, at least as many as had watched the steam loco's.

Revos and Savages are of course expensive vehicles, and big too, but I get the feeling there's a connection to make there - a lot of people ask me where they can get whichever vehicle I've got with me at the time.

RC exposure on TV is poor here in the UK, I don't know if it's any better in the US? We have one show on a relatively obscure (but excellent) satellite channel called Motors TV that covers the EFRA championships and it's on once a month, if we're lucky. My opinion of the euros, be it 1/8 buggies or whatever, is that it's fun to watch live but it doesn't work great on the TV. The scale speeds are so quick it is difficult to film, and uncomfortable to watch. I reckon if RC were to have some different and better exposure on the TV, we'd get a lot more folks into the hobby.

supertib

A few things I see

1. The global economy sucks, US citizens have far less disposable income today then they had 10 years ago............this is a huge reason for the drop in the hobby...

2. Poor quality RTR nitro's............ these things look amazing in the hobby store....get the buying frenzy going.....but fall very short of meeting expectations when people actually start running the product....Plagued by endless issues and problems people get discouraged and end up leaving the hobby.... IMO the Monster Trucks were the worst offenders of this....Products being sold with blatant design issues and manufactures not caring enough to lift a finger to fix this issue..... Sure MT's got thousands of people into RC< but those same MT's also discouraged thousands of people into leaving RC permanently..............

3 RCU used to be great...but over the years the forum has become less and less friendly towards the racers.... Now no racers will even come here as they don't want to get into a silly argument with captain Caveman and his RC Monster Truck............This lack of racers takes away a huge amount of quality technical posts, which in turn depletes the overall knowledge base of the forums...Technically speaking racers are generally light years ahead of bashers when it comes to technical aspects of the hobby...tuning nitro's, building cars etc etc.....But unfortunately over the years one by one all the racers have been chased away, and this has seriously hurt this forum.........

crispyspa

I think there are way too many complainers out there. You go to a what looks like secluded spot, parking lot, sand pit, park, lake, puddle or what ever the case may be, you go to run and someone always pops up complaining that you are making too much noise. So the people with the nitro or gas trucks, boats and planes stop running because of too much flak from some hippie who wants utter silence so he can actually hear his Acapulco Gold blazin' and cracklin' while he takes a long draw on his skull bong. True story.

splcrazy

yep things are slowly dying , most of us are getting old in age and feeling tired and cant be bothered with making new posts or threads like most of us did back in 2000 onwards . this forum is the reason i developed and grew my interest in the rc car hobby , this forum to me was and still is the most friendly forum to me . plus with the way things are going globally with job loss and lack of money could have had an effect , i also remember the pages of new posts everyday i could hardly keep up with the amount of new posts so yep it was a fun era back then maybe the new wave of youngsters will come back here and make this forum shine like it once did . i think that most of us branched out to specific forums aiming at the specific model for example the hpi baja , when that thing came out there is now heaps of new forums dedicated to the hpi baja its not funny but even those are starting to fizzle out . personally im becoming bored with my hpi baja's i bought a FG EVO 10 onroad aswell , and recently i pulled out my broken jato3.3 and started fixing that up , and next to fix up will be my revo 3.3 aswell so im going back to nitro for a while like some kind of midlife crisis and i will be buying a new traxxas nitro 4tec soon aswell as ive always wanted one of those .
there is potential for these rc manufactures to make a comeback and get a public interest again hopefully ,example: we're still waiting for hpi to make us that damn 4x4 monster truck large scale gasser . would be interesting if companies like traxxas developed largescale cars aswell , i would love it if traxxas made a 1/5th scale nitro 4tec with a giant nitro motor .

mpalm

I started out in 06 with my first emaxx then 2 years later got a revo 3.3 shortly after i sold all of my r/c stuff. I am getting back in it now im getting a new emaxx tomorrow. feels good to be back

collector1231

My Feedback: (1)

LOL, 2008 or 2009 is when I joined RCU. Did I kill it?

h22a4

My Feedback: (50)

There are still a few of us around but i really only buy and sell now not much talk.

Quickywd01

My Feedback: (3)

I started out with my first nitro revo and now I have a slayer that I got in decent shape but had a blown engine. I also picked up a revo platinum edition which is my show queen. In my original revo I blew its engine and my second 2.5R has been replaced by a .26 red dot and the .15 will go in the slayer. Starting to get back into it after parking it for a while. But as soon as I ran my revo I realized how much fun it used to be. The suspension setup was on point and reminded me of all the tinkering it took. I scored on the engine setup used and after testing it it works great but I need to replace the clutch because the spring keeps popping, tiger drive starter case because the previous owner stripped the screws and cracked the case, owb is slipping bad, receiver batt, and whatever else needs to be replaced to get it running after a while...

GT100

My Feedback: (1)

I don't think RC is dead yet but nitro has slowed down a lot. The LHS that I part time at recently moved from a 1500 square foot store to an 8000 square foot place with 2 drift tracks and a crawling track. Business has definitely gone up as well but nitro sales have declined. Sales have leaned more towards electrics, planes, helis and anything multirotor and FPV.
As far as the forums go, it's pretty much the same with them all the way across the board. More criticism, "search button" suggestions and sarcasm than any actual help. What I mean by that is that I've seen members ask questions and the first thing posted at times is "use the search feature. It's been discussed before". This is a forum. Not a search site like google or yahoo. Another example is the traxxas forum mentioned above. I went in a couple of days ago to ask if anyone had gone faster than 75 with a nitro revo and if so, how fast. First respond is 125. Followed by other useless answers. Needless to say, I'll never return to that "community". It's things like those that kill forums but I believe RC is still alive and strong.

On2_n_On4

blame (part of it) on facebook... a lot of people are spending time on it and there are lots of rc pages to read.

Jeepy2013

I agree, I've been seeing the same thing on FB. I've been on here since '08 myself, but lost all my info while I was out of RC for 2 years so I had to make a new account....Bummer!

ergastjrtwen

at least the secondhand market is ripe for the picking's