jbeck

I thought You might like to see a photo of the insides of a crystal. This is a very thin quartz wafer with two wires attached. Here is the problem with the crystal. The connection to the crystal cannot be soldered on or glued very good and they sometime come loose. You can see that the connection is a coil of wire and the crystal is just inserter in the coil. Some type of material is applied to the connection to help keep the coil in place, however they sometimes come loose on an impact.

If you have a plug in TX crystal you can test it the same way most mfg test them. From waist high drop the crystal on a linoleum floor. Then reinstall it into the Tx. If the radio still workes your crystal is ok. If the radio does not work then buy a new crystal. If the connection of the crystal is loose the impact of the jar will finish it off. If the connection is not loose the crystal will withstand the impact with the floor.
Always make this simple test to the receiver when you crash an airplane regardless of how mild a crash.

This past summer I crashed a US 60 straight at full throttle from about 200 feet. Totaled the plane broke the receiver case and threw the crystal out of the receiver. When I picked up the plane I did not know the crystal was missing. When I arrived back home and went through everything I noticed the drystal missing. The next day I went back to the crash site and found the crystal about 8 feet from the impact point. Both leads were bent a little. I took the crystal home and straightened the pins and performed the drop test twice to be sure. The radio worked correctly with the crystal installed in a different receiver. I still use that cystal.

Many people will say "I would not use that crystal" and that is ok with me if they would not use it. But let me ask you a question. If you sent your Tx back to the MFG how do you think they would test the it?
You can follow the reactionists reasoning or you can make your own decision.
Note: I am an electronics technicial by education.
Hope this helps
Lee