FM or PCM Whats the diff
Monkeyboy, I was responding to Cley's statement that Mpx is "uncompetitive". I was not claiming that the 9Z is uncompetitive but having to belabour the point for Cley that the Mpx sets are very well featured and contain things that Futaba have yet to incorporate. With Mpx features and UK prices, I would be getting less features for more than twice the price by buying a 9Z, and that doesn't seem to make Mpx uncompetitive to me. Cley always seems to have a thing against Mpx for some reason, I have nothing against Futaba as I have used it for more than 2 decades! In the last 2 years my LHS has sold more Mpx computers than it has sold Futaba and JR computers added together, those sales were all to existing Futaba/JR users and that is not the indication of an “uncompetitive” radio.
The same thinking applies across Europe and different flying disciplines. You can point to lots of 9Zs at the TOC but we can point to Mpx dominance in certain European competitions. If some Mpx features are not available in the USA then it seems clear that Mpx really doesn't care too much yet about selling in the USA. Come to my club on a Sunday morning and it looks like an exclusively Mpx club, and all are very experienced fliers who have given up their Futabas and JRs in preference for Mpx.
The Mpx is not slowed down by its 9 channels unless all are used, since it only bothers with those channels which have been assigned. At the moment I use 8 channels, the ninth is unused but one day I might need it say for an in-flight needle adjustment and it would seem to be a backward step to give up a proportional channel for 2 position only channel. Since there are 3 (maybe 4?) European radios with 12 channels, there is obviously enough of a market for large numbers of channels, and that market is increasing with the way that jets and some gliders guzzle channels.
The 9Z has to be a great radio otherwise it would not appear at top competition level, but so is the PCM10 too. The 9C, 8U, 3810 etc are good radios. Mpx also make great radios. They are not uncompetitive just because they are not aimed at the American market in the way that the Japanese radios are.