Chocks_Away

A newbie guy turned up at the field today with his brand new electric powered glider, comlpete with new radio, and introduced himself to us.
Turned out he knew a couple of the guys there, so got his gear out and got one of the guys here to maiden it for him.
Before doing anything, we discussed what channel everyone was on, so everyone shouted out theres, and I shouted "62"
Ok, he said showing us his TX ribbon, and TX Box, mines on CH72.
Right, fine..........

So off two of them went talking about learning to fly etc, and I took off for another flight..........

About 10 minutes later, I decided to come in for a landing, so brought it down, and taxied back, cutting the engine after coming to a stop.

I was just about to flick the rx's off switch, when I noticed that my controls were going haywire.
Noticing that the new guys radio had just been switched on, I again made sure that he was in fact on CH72, to which he replied yes.
None of his controls were working though but they did when I moved my sticks ?
So I said hang on a mo, while I switched off my TX, to which all his gear then worked ok, as well as moving my planes controls as well !

I said can I take a look at your TX Xtal to make sure, which I first got a reply from one of the experienced guys who said that 10 channels apart are known to cause glitching.
I thought, yeh ? - but even if they did, - not that close together they wouldn't with 2 tx's turned on next to each other.
So out came the xtal to which the label attached read CH62 ! ! !
OMG [X(]

The radio came from the local model shop, to which the owner has been know to swap xtals in radio sets if someone wants a set that he hasn't got on the shelf, but has in a boxed radio set !
If thats the case, then the TX would now not be properly tuned to that new channel would it ?
I know for sure that it wouldn't have been sent back for re-tuning
It shouldn't happen, but obviously has done in this case.
But even if it does happen, that set should have been replaced with a matching xtal set shouldn't it ?

It just goes to show that nomatter how hard you try not to clash channels with each other, you should never take a new radios channel set up for it's face value without inspecting the xtal in the flesh first !

I was lucky that I had, 5 seconds previously landed & switched off my engine.
A minute sooner, could have been disaterous, not only for the plane, but possibly for us also

And all for what ? - A shop owner who couldn't say no that day to a £10 sale when someone asked if they had a set of CH72 xtals ? [&:]

Dr1Driver

I'm glad y'all caught that mistake before a crash happened. A few years ago, I bought 2 identical radios for 2 identical planes. During the installation process in my shop, I somehow swapped the antenna flags without realizing it. The error was discovered at the field when one of the radios caused a fellow pilot's plane to go berserk, fortunately while his plane was on the ground with the engine off.

Moral of this story: Never take anything for granted. Always double-check.

Dr.1

Chocks_Away

I'm glad that it happened on the ground too.

I was going to fly for another few minutes, but for some reason just decided to land [&:]

Good job I did [X(] !