I used to fly in the 70's and 80's and now that the kids are grown I've decided to fly again. I've been looking at radio equipment and settled on the Hi-Tec Eclipse with the Spectra module. Since I plan to fly several aircraft I think this is a good choice (opinions appreciated).



After reading on this forum and others for some time I've been looking at the Berg 4DSP micro for small planes and gliders and the 5DSP for glow powered planes.



In the 80's Tx and Rx were matched and you didn't substitute. Today I've noticed that most folks substitute and use one Tx for many planes. Are my choices valid? Are there better choices? Any advise is appreciated.

Thx, Bob

Bob-I, Now-a-days it is more common to mix and match receivers and transmitters from diffferent manufacturers. The JR and Futaba transmitters are different (positive shift and negative shift). so you can't take just any RX and expect it to work with any TX. The receiver manufacturers will say if their receiver is compatible with JR, Futaba or both. Some receivers have a switch that you switch from JR to Futaba. Others are hard-wired and still others figure it out dynamically. I think Hitek matches futaba in this regard. Not sure about airtronics.

I have one berg receiver and it works fine. It is a 6-channel about 6 months old. The general opinion if Berg receivers is pretty good around here from what I've read.

I have no opinion on your choice of transmitter. They are all so good these days as compared to what we used 20 or 30 years ago. The popular choices seem to be (in this order) , Futaba, JR, Airtronics, Hitec at my local field (St. Louis). If you are going to need a buddy cord, buy a transmitter that is compatible with whatever your instructor has. Again, there is no standard in this area. Any JR transmitter can be used with any other JR transmitter as a buddy system. Same with Futaba-to-futaba. But generally you cannot buddy box a futaba with a JR. Your Hitec transmitter may buddy box with Futaba (I'm not sure). but probably not with JR. JR seems to be the odd-man-out in many areas.

Bob,
I started out with the cheaper then advanced PCM Futaba, now I solely use Hitec Prism and Eclipse. Both of the latter can switch PCM or PPM, but the Eclipse will also shift between positive or negative allowing me to use JR Rx if I have to. I only use the Hitec 535,555 and Supreme 8 Rx's, so I can't comment on the Berg setup. I don't think you'd be disappointed with the Eclipse. As of today, I'm flying 11 planes with the 7 memory Eclipse and 5 electrics in the backup 3 model memory Prism.

Hi!
From my 30 years experience ...Avoid Hitec!! To many faults with them. Servos work ok though, but stay away from Hitec transmitters and recievers.
Buy JR or Futaba! Much better.

Regards!
Jan Karlsson
Sweden

Not sure why you say that Jan. I've heard nothing but good about Hitec products, except for the Feather receiver, which pretty much everyone admits is a bad idea when flying with others.

I had a Hitec Flash 5X for a while, and it was a tremendous transmitter for the money. I own many Hitec receivers and have never had a problem with one of them. There are also a few guys in my club flying Hitec Eclipse, and they're quite happy with them.

Bob-I,
I think your choices are fine. Just be sure to specify "negative shift", or that it's for a Hitec transmitter when ordering the Bergs. (They have a good rep by the way.)

At my field the order of preference is; Futaba, Hitec, JR, Airtronics.
Dennis-

Thanks everyone. I fully expected to see at least one response that differes from the rest. People simply have different experiences. It sounds like most agree that Hi-Tec is good middle of the line stuff, which is perfect for me.

I have both the old Prism and the newer Eclipse and both are excellent perfomers. Hitec is a very reliable system and you will find the Eclipse to be a very good performer and will work with all brands of PPM receivers as you can program the shift. Yes, the Spectra module works very well and well worth the money.

ok BOB,heres the skinny on radios and recievers.You still cant mix match Futaba,Jr, Airtronics or Hitech radios and recievers. What u can do is get hitech recievers for any of these radios tuned to that radio freq. Now heres the tricky part, the Prism radio with the synthasize modual will operate any FM futaba reciever accept the PCM models. No futaba radio will operate any Airtronics or JR recievers and vice versa. As for the servos,u can use ANY make of servo for and brand of radio! All you need to know is that on both Jr and Airtronics servoes you'll need to swap the possitive and negative wires in the plug to use them with a Hitech or futaba.

Hope this helps you out, Art

It is only the older airtronics that require the lead swap. Airtronics finally wised up and their new connectors are compatable with the rest of the industry. Now, if only the various companies would standardize the keying so you did not have to shave the edge on Futaba to use them in other recievers or slim down the Hitec to let them fit into other receivers, life would be easier.

I have a PCM/PPM JR TX and was wondering what other receivers are compatible with JR? Thanks