OK PA-18, By the way I used to own a J3-C85 lots of wonderful memories. It seems to me that you have reached the point that there really are only two choices and that is to either return the complete package for a check out or installing in a beater and flying.

Now before I get roasted for saying that lets examine another simple form of range check and one I used on only one airplane and this was an important one to me where I had converted a forty five year old Orbit Tx to the Hitec 2.4 system.

That range check was simply a full power check, The power down mode for range checks to me seems to be quite varible and not an exact science. Now I ain,t no scientist or brain surgeon but it was a simple matter to find a nice straight section of highway (in my case it was good old Route 66) and to plop my butt down in the wheelchair on the side of the road with the airplane and a cardboard sign that said 'will fly for food'. Then my buddy proceeded down the road with a new fangled cell phone thingie all the while driving and wiggling sticks. Man, talk about multi tasking. Well guess what when I could no longer see which way that big old pickup truck was heading I figured that was just fine.

Now confession time, I am in a wheel chair and as you can imagine that is not condusive to range checks that are very far away especially in the dirt. I seldom do range checks and go much beyond fifty feet or so in the power down mode. This has netted me with just over fifty (now) Hitec rx's installed and checked (All Optima 7's except seven 6's and one 9) zero problems in the air.

What Oppose mentioned of course could be some issue with your check i.e. the location of your range check but the vertical/horizontal orientation of the boda or the proximity to the battery I doubt are really problems as I have violated those considerations many times especially on the small ships where packaging is so much more difficult. What I have always done however is to observe keeping that boda as far from the engine as possible.

So if you like do a full power check, just return it or fly it in a beater Perhaps all three.

John