RE: Frequency hogs
 

That is not the same thing as changing the crystal in the transmitter. What you are changing when you swap the module is you are actually changing out the ENTIRE transmission circuitry of the radio. That module has been properly tuned to be on frequency. The crystal is the part of the transmission circuitry that determines the frequency you are transmitting on. The crystal is what we have been referring to here in this thread. Your module is something different and doesn't apply to this.

Ken

RE: Frequency hogs
 

I had a long-ish post all typed up, and our company switch craped out, so I lost it.

If I had no equipment and was a newby to the hoby and knew nothing, I might go with 2.4

Since I have a 72mhz radio, I am inclined to stay with it for now.

If I had 5+ planes I would definatly stay with it in those planes.

Since I have friends that are amateur radio operators and would like to join their fun as well and there are only 2 people on 6M at the field I fly at (popular field in Houston, so there are many fliers), I will be going to 6M. I seriously doubt there are many people across the entire US on 6M.

As an aside, I was speaking with a Jet guy here, and he had issues with his 2.4 car radio where it would loose pairing after a few minutes. So the car would run fine, then suddenly no control. it would not repaire until the reciever and radio were both power cycled. This means you lost all control of your plane and won't get it back. On 72, if you lose control, you have a chance of getting control back. To make it worse he sent the radio in to be fixed and they kept sending it back saying it was fine. Yes it was if you only used it for 1 minute, but if you tried to use it for a race, it would unpair in the middle of the race. They eventually did get it fixed, but this ruined his faith in 2.4 for his jets.

I would not mind trying 2.4, but for me there is other alternatives that look better for me.

If you do get the 2.4, I would recomend doing a multiple direction radio check where you test the plane in many different radio to plane orentations, as well as leaving both the radio and plane on for 30 minutes verifing it will stay paired.

RE: Frequency hogs
 

I do feel sorry for you guys. In the UK on 35Mhz if we had the same problem as foosball we'd simply buy a new tx and rx crystal on a different channel, fit and fly. I've never really understood the fine tuning/servicing requirement about this kit.

Regards,
Andy

RE: Frequency hogs
 

As I said before, the bands over here are VERY crowded with a variety of users. We simply MUST avoid interfering with them at all costs or they will take away our use of them.

RE: Frequency hogs
 

It has to do with how tightly packed the frequencies are in the United States. There are many regulated frequencies that are closely spaced with the ones we use for our RC equipment. If a radio is mistuned it can interfer with commercial operations it can cause them a loss of money. For instance, television channel 4 is very close to our frequencies. If it weren't for this rule about tuning we probably wouldn't be allowed to even use the 72 Mhz frequency range. This would leave a lot of pilots out of luck.

Ken

RE: Frequency hogs
 

Now that you mentioned it, that has happened to me also while buddy cording my wife on her 72 mhz plane. I thought the plane was kind of glitching and then looked down and noticed that the antenna wasn't pulled out. [:@] Fortunately, this "flying range check" didn't result in a crash.:D

RE: Frequency hogs
 

Oh, OK. Our TV band starts at around 470Mhz, commercial FM radio 88Mhz, there are some frequencies close to our 35 Mhz for things like domestic cordless devices but these are usually very low powered and, anyway, we're not allowed to fly close to property (usual rule of thumb is 500metres).

Thanks,
Andy

RE: Frequency hogs
 

What is a shame about this is that if we intefere with someone else, we get the shaft.. not vice versa. If we get intefered with, we have to live with it or change systems (DX7 for instance). But I'm sure someone will figure out a way to screw that up too.

Anyone remember the Boradband over Power Lines issue a while back? That turned out not to be a big deal, but it sure got a lot of attention. And, you know who would have lost if that came to an arguement.

DS.

RE: Frequency hogs
 

Illegal or not, I have seen people swap crystals in 75 MHz Xmitters to get a place on the starting line of a race. No SWAT teams arrived to arrest the illegal radio fiends. It's one of those things that if it causes no problems, no one cares. The licensed centers that are authorized to change frequencys probably just swap Xtals and then simply check the output to see if it's legal.

RE: Frequency hogs
 

Sorry, BLE, but someone does care. This not something to be cavalier about.

If someone comes to our field with a pirated transmitter and we find out about it, well, that person won't fly at our field again. It's not what happens, it's what could happen. It probably doesn't matter with cars, or boats, but with airplanes and helicopters, it does. Would you like to fly around a person that has a transmitter that you know he has messed with? How about if you have a crash that you can't just figure out and you find out that some character showed up with a transmitter that he just swapped out the crystal and caused your problem. You may never find out, but you may. I know what I would do, and it would be costly to that character, I can tell you that.

RE: Frequency hogs
 

I sure do care. I don't want my 60 mph sport 40 hydro crashing into the shore or someone else's 80 mph twin outrigger crashing into the pits because someone decided they knew better than the FCC and radio manufacturers.
The important thing is that they can, and do, check and if there's a problem, they can fix it.