sidgates
Posts: 180
Joined: 5/14/2002
From: Denver,
CO, USA
Status: offline
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My first R/C radio, in 1952, was a BABCOCK tone receiver and a home built copy of the Babcock transmitter, I think the receiver was $30-$40.00 dollars and I couldn’t afford a factory built transmitters at that time, I was in college and my full ride basketball scholarship paid me $75.00 per month.
In 1956 I built a Lorenze two tube receiver and lost it forever on the second flight, forgot to wind the escapement. Next was a Marcy tone 6 Ch filter Rx & Tx. Next an Ace Triple Simul 10CH reed set from Ace kit designed by Phil Kraft.
Next I built a Sampey Anolog propo, copied a set loaned to me by Ed Sweeney, who later became editor of American Aircraft Modeler.
I acquired a Bonner Digital 8CH propo , paid for it by testing every Royal Single Channel servo sold in the US at $0.10 ea.
Purchased Micro Avionics 4 CH propo, flew it for one year.
Test flew an analog propo designed by Bob Boyce & Chris Peterson
( engineers at Martin Marietta), had a servo failure on every flight (Micro Mo Motors failed)
Ed Thompson moved to Denver ( by the Air Force), we hooked up and designed the first Royal Classic in 1967.
Test flew a new true digital radio in 1968 designed by Bob Boyce & Chris Peterson. The receiver had 112 transistors, radio was only 4 Ch and too expensive to produce.
Late 1969 Boyce & Peterson came up a new design, a typical “digital” 6 CH and that circuit was produced by Royal Electronics from 1970-1983.
In 1972 we produced a new Royal Classic 8 Ch, the receiver was a Boyce design and the transmitter design was by Alan Scott ( engineer at IBM ). In 1974 we changed the encoder to a linear ramp to make possible dual rates and servo reversing, designed by Elster Kimmel.
About this same time the Omega Transmitter was published in RCM by Sid Kauffman and it used the Royal RF board. We sold all these designs in kit form and factory assembled.
Some other products were the Dorffler 2CH published in Flying Models. The submin Vanguard 4 CH ( I did this design). Sid Kauffman’s “Protach”. The Tach-tron Helicopter governor designed by Al Irwin, from the engineering graduate school at the University of Illinois.
In 1980 Al Irwin designed the first micro processor encoder, the design was bread boarded on a Styrofoam board but was not packaged for flying. Parts cost projections forecast it would be economical to produce by 1985. We closed Royal Electronics in 1983. Later Al turned the bread board into a home computer doing word processing.
Since 1985 I have flown a Futaba 9Z and a Polk Tracker II, looking forward to 2.4 GIG with telemetry. My models have been everything from a Trixter Beam (1952) to a Boomerang turbine (2007).
This is probably more nostalgia than any one wanted to know
Sid Gates
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SidGates
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RE: What was your first Radio? - 
