When I first got into RC flying, I opted for Airtronics equipment mainly because I could get A LOT more bang for my buck. Never experienced any problems. In fact, on several occasions I took off neglecting to extend my TX antena. I did not realize it until well into the flights when I experienced only momentary blips of signal loss and that was only when the aircraft was relatively low, pretty far out and headed back toward me. This prompted me to do some ground - testing comparing my Airtronics equipment against my brother's Futaba equipment. Same aircrafts similarly set up and my ground radio checks showed the Airtronics equipment to have significantly larger separation before any noticeable signal interruption. Based on my testing, (albeit not scientific), I really do not think a FUTABA setup would have survived the same blunder (forgetting to extend TX antena). Now I admit to the stupidity of taking off without checking to make sure my TX antena was extended and I consider myself VERY lucky not to have lost any aircraft due to it but my comparison ground testing at least gave me more faith and confidence in my Airtronics equipment. Futaba and JR seem now and always have been more or less the industry standard and (in my opinion) are therefore, overpriced in comparison to other brands. All of this being said, I am in the process of transitioning over to Futaba equipment ONLY because of the decline in availability of Airtronics (now Sanwa) equipment. However, until that time when my transition is complete, I will faithfully fly my old Airtronics equipment with the utmost confidence. My point in all this being that just because certain equipment is not the most whiz - bang expensive out there, it does not necessarily mean that it is inferior equipment.