By the way Gary I neglected to welcome you back to the hobby/sport/passion, so glad you are coming back. Its interesting many folks often return after very long times and as often as not they are amazed at the technical advancements that occur.

As far as Futaba selling bottom end radios that use loose cells, that is nothing new and They as well as most other manufacturers have sold such units since they first entered the north American market.

The 4YF you listed is about a featureless radio possible with only servo reversing and a single mix for elevon and that's it. Now if you get active agine and start to learn about systems you will very soon tire of that radio.

Now since I use primarily Hitec the number one radio that I recommend to my students is the Eclipse seven Pro. That radio is only slightly more than the cheezy intro radio and it is packed with abilitys. For example it will give you not only readout of transmitter battery voltage but also real time voltage of the flight battery while you are flying! Even a sound alarm if that flight battery gets low. Now just thank about that. It is a airplane saving bit of technology.

John