The Rook

Hi all,
I have a few concerns about the GWS receivers. I am currently using one in my GWS C-47.
What distance is good for range checking. On the maiden flight, I had some major glitching while range checking less than 70 feet with the antenna down, but was stupid and flew it anyway. Well, I was lucky to come away with just a broken main landing gear. Pretty much started going crazy right after liftoff and I was barely able to crash land her. I changed antenna/receiver position and feed the ant. out the top of the fuse and connected it to the vert stab (previously, I had run it through the fuse and just a bit was sticking out the bottom). I tried range checing it again, and it did better, but still started glitching and controls going crazy about 100-130 feet. I put the antenna up and went out to about 150 yards. There was no glitching and everything seemed fine. With glow planes I alway range check with the ant down at about 100 feet. Should I do less with the GWS parkflyers? Or do the GWS receivers just suck?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
J

jetace11

They usualy work ok for awhile but then they die,I've gone through three 6 channel micro receivers.

flmlm

J,

I've had both good and bad luck with GWS Rx's. Like jetace11 wrote after time they seem to get worse. Look at the crystals position in the Rx closely. When I've used GWS RX and cyrstals in the past the crystal fit was very loose. What I did was put a small dab of silicon on the crystal to help it stay put in the RX and then secured the cyrstal further with a piece of tape over the top of it. This method seemed to help me with my glitching problems. As a side note, I do not put any GWS RX equipment in planes that I really care about. Good luck.

Regards
Mike

redgiki

I have a GWS receiver in my flying wing. I would not put it into anything which could not handle a crash due to radio glitch unless I only planned on flying it close and indoors.

The problems are:
1. An antenna which is dramatically shorter than comparable antennas on other receivers. An aftermarket micro antenna dramatically reduces the glitchiness.
2. The aforementioned loose crystal mount. I hot-glued mine because it was so wobbly!
3. Now this one is just conjecture, but given the price point it's a fair guess they use fairly low-quality single conversion equipment in the unit. While I believe that a good single-conversion can match a double-conversion RX, by and large single conversions seem to be less reliable because they are simply made more cheaply. Be cautious in crowded skies, as this is when this weakness shows up most: in competition with lots of other flyers on nearby frequencies.
4. Strong susceptibility to interference and nearby channel chatter. You've got to be doubly careful with the GWS Rx to route the antenna aware from servo and power-carrying wires, carbon fiber rods, and any metal bits on your aircraft.

If you're looking for a good, really small Rx, I've had great luck with my Hitec 05s. Tiny, single-conversion, incredibly light (equal to the GWS), and performance that seems as rock-solid as my Hitec Supreme dual-conversion, which is about three times the weight. Range of 1 mile plus. The downside is that it runs only 5 channels: 1,2,3,4, and 6. Basically built for your bird with flaperons, no retracts. Perfect size for most park flyers, and the price, while slightly more expensive, is in the same ballpark with the GWS six-channels:
GWS Naro 6-channel @ Towerhobbies: $24.50
Hitec Micro 05s @ balsapr.com: $29.99

Be wary, though: the Hitec requires a single-conversion crystal. Double-conversion crystals just won't work in it. Got a spare double-conversion on channel 13 now because I made that mistake... guess I need another receiver to match it!

steve ypsi mi

glitching comes from a lot of thing's, battery plug ins, servo plugins etc, I have heard this over and over but the few times I have had glitching it turned out to be one of the above, between me and my friend we have about 40 GWS rap 4's mostly and a few 6 channels, one time I did have a loose crystal, I do take a piece of celephane tape and put it over the crystal just in case since I had that one that the crystal bent wires (my fault from rough treament)
Just had one glitching yesterday, only used 3 time's deans ultra plug was not fitting right, plugged all the way in but still gave a eradic power and it did sound like the recevier, unpluged it and pushed it back in no more glitching, I had a fairly new castle creations ESC that gave me fits, one of the 3 wires in the plug in was loose that pluged into the recevier, Had to cut it off and put a new one on to stop that glitching problem

love those warbirds

My Feedback: (39)

Me too. I have had two GWS receivers their cheap $$ wise but their also cheap mechanically too. You get what you pay for. I would never buy another one because one bad landing or for no reason at all, they stop working.

stockdaddy

The naros do suck. I had one that i couldn't get range of 10 feet, let alone hundreds of feet.

For $5 more you can get a good Hitec, berg or parkflyers.com RX

topspin

That is a common problem in the C-47 and other multi-engine planes using brushed motors. There are two ways to solve the problem. The first one is to solder a .0047 and a .1 uf capacitor on each motor lead to the case. That should decouple most of the broad band noise that gets into the receiver. The second, more expensive way, is to buy a good dual conversion receiver. I would try the first method before spending 50 bucks on a receiver. Hope it works for you....

rfmullig

Which is more expensive, paying $19 for a cheap rx and replacing broken planes or buying a good berg microstamp for $34 from Aeromicro?
I have had only one GWS rx. It was JUNK! Very glichy. I do like the GWS planes though.