The radios used in the early '60's weren't "digital proportional", so what were they like to operate?

If you gave them some hrow, or input, did they go all the way? Was there any variation in the amount of throw they gave?

Yes, for each imput you gave they went all the way then back to neutral when released.
But if you gave a very short (in time) input, servos could not reach full travel so that's was the way to vary the amount.Of course to mantain a continuous partial command you had to continuosly "blip", the fastest you did, the lesser the amount of travel.
For engine control, servos did not neutralize so each quick blip vas a little step.Or you hold till full travel.
Understanding this nowadays put those great flyers of the past in a different light ....

then Ace i think came out with the galloping ghost....

Hi,

Is there anyone here on this forum that has actually flown the old blip-blip radios? How difficult was it? I would for sure want to try if I had a chance. But I guess to use such radio today would be a hazard with great risk to get radio failure (frequency disturbance etc). I have an old Graupner Variophon blip-blip (might try to get it in working condition).

/Bo

Edit.

Analog proportional was introduced at about the same time. Don Brown offered a fine four channel analog proportional set known as the Quadraplex. It had some tubes too. Kraft also had some analog proportional rigs, IIRC.


Ed Cregger

Bo,

I did fly with my scratch build blib-blib (tip-tip , Dutch) radio. No reeds but electronic (Schumacher) tone filters and Metz (German) servos (no escapements) for rudder and throttle.
3 channel, two for rudder, one for 2 position throttle.
I think these tone filters are also used in the Graupner Varioton.
First picture was with two channels and Webra Diesel, second picture is my "new" four channel simultan transmitter I did use with a Webra Glow star.
The battery indicator I later use in one of my digital proportional transmitters, picture 3. (A copy of the circuit of a Simprop transmitter)
Nice period, I did learn flying myself.
I did use auto stabil own design models, so less to control. See picture one, dihedral!
The (Glow Star) engine did have two position throttle, full power and idle, possible with one channel. For rudder I did use two channels, one left, one right direction.

Cees

I started flying with reeds when I was 7 years old and flew them from1963 to about 1966 (Klinetronics & Orbit).  They used the blip method.  I Then moved into digital proportional using Kraft - then Proline.   Since on reeds the elevator was on the right and the ailiron on the left this is where Mode 1 came from.  Still fly it today.

douceym

I don’t use a mode to control my models. Did learn to fly without!
Right side throttle and ailerons, left side elevator and rudder.
Cees

You fellows make me feel young, thank you. And humble. Your knowledge far exceeds mine. Keep talking!

When you fellows were flying full house "multi" in the sixties, I was trying to save a month's pay ($95) in order to buy a Mule transmitter and stick/pulser to control the wingless Ambroid Charger fuselage that was complete with engine and compound escapement and F&M receiver that Ed Thompson gave me while I was in the USAF in 1966.

He had flown the model once or twice and then it crashed, destroying the wing. So, with a Tx and wing, I could have been active in R/C. It never happened, though. Wish I had that Charger fuselage and setup today...


Ed Cregger

Ed, you write, keep talking
My picture of 1966. I did use my bicycle to go to my “airfield”, did not have a driver license neither a car but, still have my transmitter and one Metz 2 channel rudder servo.
Maybe I rebuild a superregen 3 channel receiver and built my plane again. I still have the dimension sketches and I think I do not have problems when using tone-selective systems these days
And the mode I use?
The same as you did in the past with the wingless Ambroid Charger, undefined, and that’s what I call “Classic pattern flying”.
Cees

I wouldn't recommend flying an old set today. Wire insulation that is 40+ years old gets hard and brittle. Capacitors change their characteristics with age. Wire gets brittle as it is work hardened by constant moving through the years. And so on. This would apply throughout the entire system.

I flew with the World Engines reed systems in the late 1960s. I used ailerons and rudder on the two right toggle switches. Elevator, throttle and elevator trim on the left switches. Blipping the switches wasn't all that bad - at least so it seemed at the time. Some flyers blipped all the time, I believe some like Ed Kasmirski (if I remember his articles) with his Taurus preferred to use full throw on the servos to do loops, etc. That lets the airplane determine the loop size and makes for a smooth loop. A blipped elevator type of loop would show up as a multi sided figure but one that a pilot had a lot of control over.

It all depended on what the pilot felt good doing.

I hated reeds because it seemed that no matter how I tried, I was always getting some harmonic of the motor/prop feeding through the receiver vibration dampening sponge and into the reed bank. I also tried various homemade pulse systems and escapements. There isn't anything that would make me go back and give up my JR 12x. I love stuff that works all the time! You can get a simulation of flying reeds by bliping the sticks if you wish.

I have a Ambroid Charger in the garage that is flyable. I converted it to electric and made a rudder/elevator airplane out of it. It is a little over powered - recently I did a split S with it and during the start of the pullout the elevator came off. I thought I had epoxied it in place reasonably well, but some of the wood actually broke. I chopped the throttle and gave full rudder to try to flatten the straight down trajectory. Well the airplane hit in a fairly soft soy bean field which was lucky. Nothing was broken, just dirty. I used more epoxy and promised myself to be more careful about speed.

It is fun,

Ben

Not that I am aware of. Perhaps you were thinking of Orbit.

My bad.

Musta been Orbit that I was thinking of.


Ed Cregger

Ed,

Do you know, Radio Control Hall of Fame?

http://www.rchalloffame.org/

Look on right side of the page for:

First proportional?
Doig's Ulti Multi

This does show us the time line of the early period of proportional radio's, scroll down for:

Early Proportional Timeline

http://www.rchalloffame.org/Exhibits...t11/index.html

I also did some experiments with analog proportional.
Problems were, weight and temperature stability of servo position.
Digital was more easy for the scratch builder.
Important parts of the decoder were a little (transistor seize) semiconductor, thyristor BRY39 (digital) and not 2 heavy coils for each proportional channel (analog).

Cees

"douceym" Would that be like in Mark or Dave? I recall the two Doucey brothers that used to fly the pattern circuit (Chicago, Indiana, Wisc, etc) back in the mid to late seventies. Just wondering out loud.... hook

That would be Mark  I am in Indy now and Just started pattern again.

PM sent Mark.
hook</p>

I still have one of Len Purdy's "Galloping Ghost " escapemants, NIB.

Don't you hate it when guys get technical and all about what you just wrote? Feel free to gripe at me :-)

The "Galloping Ghost" in it's many forms uses a motor with linkages that pulses back and forth. The pulse rate changes from about 4 to 12 pulses per second (it varied with user setup). The pulse width was set up to work rudder and the pulse rate to give elevator. The tail wiggled in flight at the lower rates hence the name "Galloping". I honestly don't know why or where the "Ghost" came from. I had a set up in a heavy airplane and on full up it was indeed a series of gallops as the airplane would try to pull out of a loop. It did require a transmitter or keying box that could send out the pulse rate/width codes needed such as this.. The least complex system had one motor hooked by a torque tube to the tail. There a complex set of linkages "decoded" the pulse width and rate to the rudder and elevator.

http://www.rchalloffame.org/Manufact...rth/index.html

These were some of the more well engineered Galloping Ghost devices.

http://www.rchalloffame.org/Manufact...and/index.html

Controlaire had both transmitters and actuators. The bottom shelf is a shot of several different actuator designs, I flew some of them.

http://www.rchalloffame.org/Manufact...1001-full.html

The "escapement" (two main brands were Bonner and Babcock) is a stepped device driven by the torque of a rubber band. With the rubber band version one click and hold on the transmitter would activate an electromagnet which would release a wheel which had a speed limiting device attached to it (so it wouldn't instantly let all of the rubber band unwind). The wheel, which had an output hookup, would be stopped at a pre-determined rotation - 90 degrees to give right rudder. Release the transmitter button and it would cycle around to neutral rudder again. Push, release and push again and hold would let the wheel stop at 270 degrees to give left rudder. Release and you went back to neutral. It worked until you accidently overwound the rubber and jammed the escapement or if the prop/motor vibration got to it and let it unwind all of your rubber - both resulting in a flyaway. I had a couple in the learning days....

Some folks took the one and two pulse control sequence and thought in a motor driven mode. You would use a series of gears to get power and then use position driven wipers to switch the voltage to get the same effect. Len Purdy's design was a motor driven escapement (he also had servos for reed systems). I think (not too sure on this though) Len also made some rubber band driven escapements - there are photos and descriptions given here ...

http://www.rchalloffame.org/Manufact...ery/index.html

I believe the devices in blue are the motorized escapements along with a control box to send out the desired number of pulses. The red cased devices are for multichannel radios.

This turned into a long winded bit but it brought back memories of the good-ole-days when I was in High School and couldn't buy anything and had to home make stuff. I was very interested in these kinds of approach. I am so very glad those days are over.

Good Flying,

Ben

racerchuck,

There were also for a short period analog proportional systems, older than digital proportional.
They did operate by changing a few audio frequencies for main control functions sometimes combined with pulse length for other channels.
The analog audio frequenciy"modulated" proportional channels have to operate the same way the later digital pulse-length "modulated" proportional channel is working.
That's why we also call these "proportional" radio.
A profit maybe is, the audio "modulated" channels are kind of fail-safe.
Modulated between two "" because all systems that time were AM (amplitude modulated).

Could buy me 6 "potkernen" yesterday, diameter 14 mm, to build me a new 6 channel (blip/blip, tip/tip) receiver to combine with my old tone modulated transmitter, I also can make 3 channels analog proportional with these elements after winding the coils but for that I also have to make a transmitter in that "case".




Cees

Oh I wasn't suggesting anyone buy/use this, but it does explain why they Jumped off the ground on some takeoffs...

We've come a long way !

racerchuck

When you only work with systems you can buy, you also have a long way to go!

Cees

Cees,

A long way to go?? Let me humbly disagree with you a little on that.

Granted, I tend to approach my RC model hobby as Airplanes guided by a Black Box with sticks on it. I mess with the airplanes, not the radios. If I look at the guts and capabilities of my JR12x, and consider that I don't have the slightest idea of how it works, I might say that I have a long way to go with respect to modern equipment. But going back and winding some coils to make a tone transmitter, etc. to recreate something from the dark ages isn't much of a step forward I think.

I find there is so much to do with models using the terrific modern equipment that there isn't time to do more than think about the old equipment. I do enjoy looking at the Equipment Museum and reliving the old memories of those days, but, a lot of those memories are of crashes due to the flaws in the equipment. I never had much of a fleet of airplanes in the good old days due to crashes due to equipment failure. Now there are over 50 models of all sizes in the garage - all fly flawlessly due to modern equipment. I love it.


Good flying,

Ben

Gents, about old radio’s for who is interested,

During the world champion ships in 1963 in Genk Belgium, the second place was for Frits Bosch using the German Telecont 9 radio system with tone filters and relays see picture 1. Both Ed (Orbit reeds radio) and Frits were beaten by Ralph Brooke with his Orbit early proportional, see picture 2.

It is possible that Ralph Brooke did use the early Orbit 5 + 1 analog proportional radio of which I show the pictures 3 and 4, you can see the coils in the receiver as part of tone filters to translate the audio frequencies I in a useable voltage, two coils and capacitors for each channel.
It is interesting to know Orbit “reeds” was beaten by Telecont 9 during (one of) the latest world championships with tip-tip radio using pilots.
And were these systems reliable? Of course and also the Man Machine Communication was much easier.

Cees