Hi Shane,

The reason I recommended sending this in to us, is for safety reasons.

It is definitely not recommended to have your transmitter on for any lenght of time with the module in and the antenna collapsed, because there is always the chance that damage will occur to your module. This is why there is an FAQ on our website, and when in doubt we offer our email and phone number for our Technical Support team, who are happy to assist whenever our customers have a question.

I offered new face plates to the two gentlemen who had problems with them, as I told them we did have a very few of the 9C's that had this problem, and this is considered a defect.

Unfortunatley, leaving the antenna down while programming, is not a warranty issue.

You may send this in to my attention and while I will not warranty this for you, I will try to help you out with the costs of having this checked out.

I hope you find this information helpful. You can also reach our Futaba support technical team at 217-398-8970, or via fax at 217-398-7721.

Sincerely,
Krysta
Lead Futaba Customer Service and Programming Technician
Also you may want to check our Website at (http://www.futaba-rc.com)