And it was, apparently, buried before Jerry or I could see it. Perhaps, after the initial hubbub over the duplicate GUIDs settled down, I didn't check in at the proper intervals to read evidentiary posts before they were expunged.

As a relative newbie, I have neither a great allegiance to, or an axe to grind with, Futaba. But I'm watching very carefully how they respond to this. I won't consciously give my $ to a company that doesn't have the integrity to own up to issues that potentially can result in the destruction of hobbyists' equipment, or personal injury.

Any legitimate complaint, such as Jerry's, should be taken seriously and investigated to evaluate credibility. If found to be credible, even if the problem can't readily be duplicated, it should be noted in the Futaba forum, where other owners of the 6EX can see it. Withholding this information is a great disservice to us, the customers, and we shouldn't tolerate it.

I'm quite content to give Futaba the benefit of the doubt with reference to the original oversight where transmitters were sold with identical GUID codes. We heeded their advice and were satisfied. But when something else comes up and their stance is to deny that a given scenario is possible or delete the cautionary words of fliers who've experienced a problem and try in good faith to report and enlighten us, I don't appreciate being left in the dark.

If they want to say that it can't happen, or shouldn't happen, or "that's not the way it's designed", fine. But leave the post so I can learn from the experiences of others and take steps to assure that I'm not put into a position to experience the same failure. Denials and attempts to obscure evidence of malfunction breeds distrust and fuels the rumor mill. Would Futaba prefer to have an actual event documented or have wild rumors and 3rd or 4th party recollections of what "I read about one time in the forum, but it's not there anymore."?

We invested in these radios with the intent to make our hobby safer and more reliable, for our benefit and the benefit of our fellow fliers. We want to be confident with our equipment and able to rebut uninformed members who stand before our club and say "I heard such-and-such about these Futaba FASST radios". We want to be able to point to the forum where Futaba has made their case in explanation about any given reported anamoly. It's pretty hard to do that when the posts disappear.

Clubs are going to eventually be forced to address the rumors and will likely come up with alternate rules governing the use of Futaba 2.4gHz equipment ironic, because this equipment was designed to eliminate potential conflicts and afford a high degree of confidence to us, as users. I like being able to go to the field, skip the step where I have to obtain a frequency pin, and turn my radio on and off without having to worry about what other fliers are using. If I have to go through some pointless rigmarole to mollify somebody who heard or read a rumor that Futaba didn't address or tried to ignore, I'm going to be putting my dollars into another brand that doesn't have this excess baggage.