RE: what was your first radio system?
Mine was the Miller receiver. The construction article appeared in the January 1953 issue of Model Airplane News. I was too young to build it, 12, so I had one of my older friends make it for me since he had the experience. He charged me $10. I built the Berkley Bootstraps for it. It was powered by an OK Cub .14. The plane had a rubber band powered Bonner escapement that was sequential. You had no choice of direction, just what ever was coming up next. There was no motor control. The flight stopped when you either crashed, flew away or just ran out of fuel. My friend had a ground based transmitter that weighed several pounds and it was always placed on top of his car for better reception. I don't remember if I ever had any successful flights on it but something good must have happened since I am still at it. I began to have more consistent successes with the Citizen-Ship brand and stuck with that for a while until college stopped everything for a few years. Dan.