What do you use to check your receiver battery? All I saw in the Tower catalog were two on-board micro units.
I'm looking for something to plug in to the charging pigtail (Hitec) that will tell me if I need to recharge.
Also, my wall wart AC charger takes 16 hours to do a charge according to the radio manual. Is there a quicker (but safe) way?

i guess this is 1 of the things you say you don't want. But i must tell you this thing is awesome and it doesn't weigh a thing. And for the price you can't beat it.
Volt Watch

You could get a field charger.
I got one at www.servocity.com
Hitec CG-340 Peak Charger.
This way you can charge at the field or before you go.
There are a bunch of options for chargers, this one is real cheap at $34.95 and free shipping.
You will need to get some banana clips and the appropriate connectors for you radio and receiver batteries.

Bill

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXWW16&P=7
You will need to get Hitec leads.

http://www.siriuselectronics.com/

You can get the Pro from Central Hobbies or Heliproz for $109

Why do I get the feeling you already know the answers to these questions?

I don't know, but I don't.
Thanks for the info.

The digital one probably works better, but for less you can get the Hobbico Analog ESV

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...p?I=LXNK81&P=7

I keep one of these in my flight box and it works very well. I made a bannana to Futaba J connector so I can plug it into the charge ports of my aeroplanes.

Charlie,
Got an "invalid part number" message from your link and a "no matches" on an item search for "hobbico analog esv".

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXNK81&P=7

They the above. The Tower part number is LXNK81

That worked. Thanks, Charlie.

I second Steve's recommendation. It is quick (as they all are) but there is no thought process involved. Just plug in--when done, it blinks. And when the batt. is recharged, the unit switches to a "pulse" charge which is supposed to recondition the battery (I don't know if it actually works, but I believe it IS better than a trickle charge, which is what most other units do)