Actually, the US is pretty much the only country that does have a restriction about changing out the transmitter crystal. Most other countries are fine with allowing the end users to change out the crystal. As was said above, this is why in most radios the crystals are readily accessable so that changing them out can be quick and easy.

The reason why the US is so strict about it is because of the very narrow allocation of frequencies for use by RC. The frequency allocations in the US has other uses in very close proximity to the RC ranges on the radio spectrum. The need to have a professional change the crystal and retune the radio is to prevent the radio from bleeding over to other uses such as commecial television. In most other countries they are allocated a large band of frequency for RC, and each channel is wider than what we us in the US, and this is why most countries have less channels to use than we do for RC.

Ken</p>