You can go visit a club.. and maybe someone in the club will volunteer to help you get better results from the model you have... (a little help can go a LONG way...)

There are inexpensive ways to fly RC... But the LAST place you want to skimp is the radio. You will find that you NEED 4 channels rather quickly. There are 4 basic flight controls to the aircraft... Thrust, pitch, roll and Yaw. If you don't have control over all 4... you will not be able to make the aircraft do some things that you kind of expect from it.

That's probably part of why you are dissapointed in the Firebird. It has minimal control.