My club prints a membership roster each year, including the frequencies the member uses. I took an hour or so to put it in a spread sheet, and found out that nobody used channel 20. So I sent all my transmitter off, and $35 and two weeks later it came back on channel 20 (including receiver crystals). At the very next club meeting, it was announced that channel 20 was banned due to interference from a TV transmitter. I asked why it wasn't posted at the field, or in the newsletter, and they said, "Because it's been that way forever, so everybody already knew it." []

So, I went back to the spread sheet, found the next least used frequency, and sent all my equipment off to be changed to channel 17. After it came back, how long before I got to the field and there was already somebody on 17? Answer: about two weeks.

The moral of the story is that you can't win. I now take identical setups on different channels, and I've yet to find guys on both!