jaymen
Posts: 213
Joined: 3/26/2003
From: Mission Viejo,
CA, USA
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Steve, Mr. Yamato owned Futaba. He was very closely associated with Mr. Ogawa of OS engines. His passion was Radio Controllled models, and his hobby as well. He and Mr. Ogawa were both hobbyist, and he was inspired by Ogawa's first proportional radios, as sold here under OS, by World Engines(John Maloney) They had a blue anodized case, and white plastic gimbals.
Futaba means new leaf, or green leaf...kind of like a sprout. Anyway, their principal product was vacuum tubes, and vaccum flourescent type numerical displays for clocks and early calculators(remember the blue colored numerals?) They had a close association with Sharp, and other Japanese manufacturers of electronics. Yuoso Diamond(York) came from Sharp to head up Futaba USA corperation, where my wife and I worked for many years.
Mr Yamato had begun developement of escapement and sequential single channel equipment as far back as the late 1950's for his own use, and began selling systems here in the USA by the early 1960s. They were initilally sold out of New York by companies like AHC, Polks, and later by MRC in Edison New Jersey. The first MRC(Model Rectifier Corp) digital proportional radios were Futabas. Alot of the early Futaba radios carried the MRC name, as they had made a deal with Futaba to distribute and sell in the USA.
The MRC proportional radios had delux features, and had an angled case with neck strap giving them a Euro look like the Multiplex. They featured chromed OS sticks at first. The angled case put the antenna at about a 60 degree angle for optimal radiation of the transmitted RF lobes. MRC went on to import alot of Tamiya products designed to use Futaba radios, and Today they are still known as MRC/Tamiya. In Japan, many Tamiya products include a Futaba radio. The same holds true for Kyosho, who also made Almost Ready to Fly planes set up for a Futaba radio installation, although Kyosho also had deals with Sanwa, and later JR.
By the early 1970s, Futaba began to market their radios with their name more prominently featured, and the MRC name slowly dissappeared from Futabas. This let to Futaba opening a USA corperation in Carson California from where they could distribute and market their r/c products directly to the emerging USA r/c market. My wife betsey worked at the Carson facility, and I came on board shortly after they moved to a brand new facility they had specially built in Irvine California, it was really nice.
Futaba had introduced the first FM radios from Japan, as well as the first PCM radios seen here, along with some of the best pistol grip car radios the industry had ever seen at that time. Futaba also introduced quick change RF modules that plugged into the back of the radio, another Japanese first(Kraft was the first USA maker with this feature).
When Mr. Yamato died, Futaba honored his wishes in keeping the R/C division, at it had been his dream. The R/C division, although highly successful in dominating the USA market, was never a big proffit maker for Futaba Japan. The computor keyboard, and automotive vacuum flourescent displays as seen in Chrsler/Mitsubishi car dashes, was the big proffit maker. Hence, with Mr. Yamato gone, there was increasing pressure to make the r/c division more proffitable.
The end result was that the new management team of Futaba Japan sold the Irvine facility and warehouse, turned over the r/c product distribution and servicing to Great Planes, moved the corperate headquarters to Huntsville Alabama and opened an office in the Chicago area to handle the automotive display and industrial r/c divisions. It made more sense to have the corperation located near the car manufacturing plants where Futabas main business was. The technicians at Irvine were dissbanded, a couple went to Airtronics, a couple went back east to work for Great Planes, I went to work for Tekin. One of the techs who went to Airtronics is now at Hobby People, as they aquirred Airtronics, much like Great Planes did Futaba.
So yes, Futaba R/C was started by an avid modeler, but nobody followed in his footsteps as a company leader, so the focus became profitability. The main reason JR(Japan Radio) made inroads in the USA R/C market was because Mr. Yamato died, and without him steering the ship Futaba fell behind, allowing JR to get a leg up on them. The reason Airtronics did not do any better was they did not import the top line radios here to the USA, those radios were availlable abroad, and in Japan, but with the death of Lee Renaud, Airtronics USA had nobody who was R/C savvy to head-up the USA distributorship. Frustrated, after more than 18 years, they let the Renaud family go and gave the opperation to Hobby People last year.
I worked for Lee Renaud at Cox, when it was still called Cox/Sanwa. At that time (1980) Lee convinced Leisure Dynamics, who owned Cox, to import Sanwa's better line radios with the name Aitronics/Sanwa. The Sanwa name remained at the insistance of Kagi, because the Japs wanted name recognition, as they were trying to give Futaba a run for the money, as well as Kraft. Lee worked with Kagi on the layout, and features of the first XL series radios. I have one, the first sample sent to us and given to me by Lee, it has no FCC ID plate or serial number, I cherish it!
< Message edited by jaymen -- 2/20/2008 7:31:09 PM >
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RE: Some early digital proportional history - 
