What is single conversion and what is dual conversion? (All I want to do is buy the right cyrstals)
Does the single / Dual conversion pertain to the Tx or the Rx or both?
What is the difference bettween single conversion and dual conversion (besides the obvious single & dual). Can someone please explain what this means and what the differance is. I ask the people at my local hoby shop and nobody knows I ask the president of our RC club, he can't answer I ask other people I know in the hobby and they don't know. Who has the knowledg please help (I am asuming single conversion is anolg and dual is anolog & digital) if so will a dual conversion crystal work in a single conversion reciever/transmitter making it backwards compatable and understanding a single conversion will not work in a dual conversion system.
At this point I am only guessing and assuming and you know what happens when we assume we make a you know what out of you and me (ass_u_me). [/size]

If there is one place where someone is sure to know... this is it!

It pertains to the Rx. It has nothing to do with analog/digital. Single conversion crystals won't work with dual conversion receivers and vice versa. ass_u_me... bad new bears... as I recall

Make sure you get a crystal that matches your receiver!

Here is my favorite technical description:
http://www.torreypinesgulls.org/Radios.htm

It has to do with the number of stages of demodulation that are going on in the input stage of the receiver before the signal is amplified. Single conversion has a single stage. Dual has two. It is only an issue with FM receivers. Dual conversion is a way get around some niggly technical problems that can lead to "cross talk" (for lack of better term) between certain channel pairs. The torrey pines site describes it far better than I every will.

What kind of receiver do you have?

But you don't need to know all the technical crap.

As Jim said, dual and single (crystals/receivers) aren't compatible. I'll say one more thing; single conversion are not as good at filtering out stray signals or adjacent frequencies. So do youself a big favor and stick with dual conversion.

Dennis-

Thanks, I have some single and dual conversion recievers and have been diying for some logical insight & explanation on the whole transmitter & reciever technology and the web sight you provided answered all questions this will definately be braught to our next meeting, thanks alot.

Btw, some brands of RXs and cystals are interchangeable, some aren't. Futaba, Hitech, and FMA all use the same FM duel conversion Rx crystals, so you can buy by price among those brands. JR uses a cyrstal that will only work in JR gear. I don't know about any others.

(I routinely swap FMA and Hitech cyrstals around when I change channels, and I've seen other guys swap Hitech and Futaba. I don't have any Futaba stuff myself. I personally like Hitech cyrstals because they have a really nice paper label that tells me what channel it is and makes it easer to get in and out of the RX)

I just read the link provided by Jim, that's a great article, should be required reading for anyone past newbie stage. I picked up a couple of things I didn't know, and it had a lot of great explinations for the "whys" of things I did know.