ORIGINAL: SMUGator
Is there a sure fire way to determine whether or not it is narrow-band?
Yes and you just received it from Bax in the post above (a Futaba rep). There is nothing in that package that is usable, not even the switch except the servos and to use those you must change out the old G plug for the newer J plug. A G plug will not properly function in a modern Rx, The pin spacing not compatable.
The bottom line is even if you ignored the fact that the Tx is wide band and illegal just getting the thing operational is going to cost you near as much as a modern unit and certainly a far less capable unit.
No Club or organized (AMA or otherwise) event is going to allow its use and folks who insist on using dirty radios become very unpopular rapidly.
RCMA gold sticker program ran from just before the 1991 cutoff that wideband units were no longer allowed to be sold to 1998 the cutoff date that manufacturers were no longer allowed to do tweaking of old wideband units to allow the older units to meet the standard. In the case of Rx's they were simply pitched as none could be narrowbanded.
Some independant shops may have done narrowbanding of some Tx's after this date but the advice that you still hear to day to "Send it in and have it narrow banded" is ill advised.
Don,t confuse the use of very old units utilizing the 27mHz band as used by some vintage flyers. The 27 mHz band never was never subjected to narrowing bandwith limitation as the 72mHz systems were. Its still legal to use these systems as far back as the fiftys.
John