Hi Folks,

I recently joined a fling club in my city. The field is an AMA chartered field. After learning how to fly on my 2 trainers, I advanced to a Four Star 40. Since I've started fling the Four Star, I encountered serious glitches. I grounded the Four Star. After paying close attention to my trainers when I flew them, what I considered to be the wind doing to my plane turned out to be radio interferrence. I verified this by taking all 3 of my planes to another field 40 miles or so away. I did not encounter any glitches at this field. I brought the club president with me to confirm this.

I started a post in RC Radios, Transmitters, Receivers, Servos, gyros forums called "Glitches in my new 4* "here's a link
[link]http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7544270/tm.htm[/link]
Everyone was real helpful with their tips and suggestions.

Alot of effort went into finding the cause of the glitches. I also spent alot of money on a new radio system for the Four Star. I did get the same channel as my other 2 planes to keep it simple fo me. Turns out I cant use this channel for fear of an accident.

After raising the question at the field, all the old stories about glitches and related problems started pooring out.

Anyways my question is, Is there anything the AMA can do to help us find the source and identify and other frequency problems at our field.

Or steer us in the right direction to solve these problems>??

They can loan your club a frequency scanner to aid you in localizing/identifying the source, but the leg work is for you to do. Contact Jose Sota, D-V Frequency Coordinator [link=http://www.amadistrict-v.org/cgi-bin/msb.cgi?9]HERE[/link].
Bear in mind that the operator of an interfering source is not necessarily or even likely to be in violation of the law. An AMA club and members thereof have no superior right to use of the public service frequencies allocated to model airplane control than any other person using them for R/C of a model airplane. Fact is, your rights are diminished because you are obligated to operate per AMA rules (ex: 3 mile separation from known sources of interfering signals); if the interfering operator is non-AMA, he has no obligation to conform to AMA rules. IOW, be nice to him/them and see if you can work out a frequency sharing agreement.

Abel

The club I belong to has a similar problem on Channel 44. All club members know this and avoid this frequency. We have narrowed it down to the utilization of communications equipment in the nearby rock quarry, although we have not been able to confirm this. For now the easy solution is to fly only on days where there is no activity at the rock quarry.

Rafael

You will find that this is not uncommon. We had a problem at our club on 44, turned out to be a sloppy TV station with some abnormally high side lobes. People just don't use that frequency here. You might trade out your crystals, moving up or down one channel. Radical RC has a good crystal exchange program. $5 and your old crystal. So for a few bucks you can be free of the offending interference.

I don't have the problem anymore, a few years ago I switched to synthetized systems. In the near future I will make the switch to 2.4 and all the problems will be gone.

The rule still stands for anybody flying on ch 44 tho.

Rafael

We have 4 pair of channels (8 channels total) that are banned at our field due to outside interference. In our case, all of them are due to pager systems.

The FCC licenses pagers to operate between our RC channels. Most of the time, they aren't a problem, but if their transmitter is close by your field, or they have a really powerful transmitter, you'll get hits when they transmit.

And the fun thing about pager systems is that they are "off" most of the time, so you can fly and fly and fly and then suddenly get blasted with no warning.

The FCC does provide an on-line search system here:
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsS...Geographic.jsp

Just pop in your field's location and a frequency range you're interested in. Remember to not look directly on your RC frequency, you won't find anything. Instead, look for a range around it. So if I'm looking for interfernece on channel 12, that's 72.030mhz. I'll put in a range of 72.010 through 72.050. That will pick up anyone licensed near channel 12.

Good info, Kirk. Thanks, that's something I'll file away for future reference.

Abel

Thxs abel_pranger and Montague,

Great information!

I will get with our club president and see what, if anything he wants to do about this. Our field has been here along time. You know how the old guys get set in their ways. But I dont think they have taken new construction into consideration and that happening all around our field.
Unlike the opportunity I didn't have, I'd be happy to show the new guy a list of channels that we might be having problems on such as mine. Also a list could be sent to our LHS so he could advise new customers of the issue.
I'd hate to be the bringer of bad news (on one hand) and I'd love to save our members some aggravation and expense (on the other).
Thxs again folks I'll try to keep yall updated

Fella's sell your Crystal type transistors and get a Spektrum radio. That is if you can find someone willing to buy a crystal type anymore. That is the only problem at our field is if more than one have the same channel. Interference is not a biggie. But seems like the guys with the crystals all seem to have chosen the same one lol. Or when you have a different than most one other will have the same. And if something happens first words are did someone have there radio on. Spektrum DX6 and 7 are both very good radios. Or another name brand with 2.4 all your worries execpt low batteries are solved. I know they are expensive but not after losing planes because of crystal interf.