i bought a downed airplane locater today and the problem is the jack can go in the receiver in both directions and the instructions
dont tell me which way to plug it in ,will putting it in backwards harm my receiver ? iam using an FM system thanks

It won't hurt your receiver. If it has colored lines, it should plug in the same way as a servo. All you are doing is using battery power from the bus where the servos plug in. Normally, the black or brown (-) wire on the plug goes towerd the outside (top plug) or bottom (end plug) of the receiver. The red (+) wire is in the middle and the signal wire (white, orange or yellow) is towerd the center or top of the receiver. Plug into any spare channel, like ch5 or gear channel. All you are doing is getting power and those lines are common.

WOLFCDN;
Ed is correct, it just plugs in like a servo, AND you can even use it as a servo extention (for the ailerons).

The only problems with these devices is that they work 'Best' if you can have the 'Speaker' outside of the AC, this is easy - just drill a small hole in the fuse and line up the locater.

If you don't do this NO PROBLEMS! [8D]
It still works! It's just not as loud.

BTW- they really do work, especially if you loose a plane in 100 acres of corn!

What...you mean I can stop trying to train my dog to indicate on the scent of glow fuel??

thanks for the info!! the wires are colored like this orange ,red middle ,brown ,i got the orange on the antenna side on a futaba 7 channel FM receiver , i think thats right anyway i tried it on the bench and it worked as soon i turned off the TX ,loud little sucker[X(]
its going in a 2m glider and i think i will drill a 1/16 hole in the fuselage and use a small amount of silicon and glue it on the inside of
the fuselage , now all i need is my spinning fishing rod and a sinker to shake the tree branches and iam all set

Which device did you go with? Do you have a website for them? Not that I need one of course...

I bought one form Radical RC and they are $14.
http://radicalrc.secure-mall.com/sho...PassThrough=Y&

No. My experience indicates that eventually the dog will be needed also.

Bill

Another thought for mounting the locator: use Velcro to mount it then mount it so it points toward the open part of you fuse, that sort of makes an echo chamber out of the fuse and you can hear the locator better. ENJOY !!! RED

Maybe one of the electrical geniuses will know how to make the beep LOUDER. It doesn’t need to beep very often.

Bill

Some of you fellows are missing the secondary function / benefit of this little item...

It starts beeping as soon as there is A) power AND B) No signal to the radio.

What this does for you is tell you that the receiver is on and the Tx is NOT!!

It ensures that you know when (if) you have left the RX on and gone for a coffee, or bumped the switch as you are loading the plane into the car. It is also a good way to confirn a ground check on the system - do your function checks and then walk away 100' to confirm - if the beeps starts up at the 50' mark - you have a range problem!

In most cases, all of my crashes have seperated the battery from the rest of the system so an alarm using the flight battery would be of little or no use. If you get a locator which has its own power supply (usually a 9 volt battery) you solve this problem but lose the advantages described above about being warned when you accidently leave the receiver on and the transmitter off. Also, the self powered unit must have its own switch which you must remember to turn on at the start of a flight. It will alarm you to turn that switch off when you land and turn off your transmitter though. These are just considerations you need to think about when you buy a locator.

I just wanted to drop in for a second. Having come from the high powered rocketry world, there are a number of devices made to locate Rockets that are very loud and may be able to be adapted for this use. I just wanted to throw another option on the table.

I think they make them so loud becasue of the nature of the sport. Often times you are traveling a mile to find something 5 feet long and 4 inches in diameter that has just come down from about 6,000 feet. You may know it's in the cornfield, but which cornfield.


Tom

someone else mentioned it, but don't rely on this to find a crashed airplane. any airplane crasher worth their salt will splatter parts over at least 30 feet, you may not even FIND the battery pack! but again, they are great for reminding you to turn off your plane, the cost of this alone could be made up with one destroyed pack if you left the plane on once... also, i've lost some fairly pricy coreless servos to a plane that I left on once. apparently when it got low the control surfaces started twitching, and eventually burnt out the coreless servo motors.