Hi Everyone,

I have not been flying anything in years. My last transmitter I bought was Specktrum 7s. I believe it had the latest tech at the time (DSM2 or DSMX). Is this controller too old to resume flying again.

check with your local hobby shop or go out to a club and ask.

its nice you want to get back in and you should. I was away for some time and my old TX's were still good , but I went to the newest and latest and was very glad I did.

my new TX I got back in 2008 was a good buy.

good luck !

sticks

Hi Soaring High

what field are you at? I see you are in Abingdon. I fly at Swan Harbor. I still have a DX6i which is fine. The DX7S came out a few years ago and half my planes are on it. The original DX7 was JR based, but a few people still have them. If the TX has not been sitting in high heat, it should be ok. I would just change the battery. Come on out to Swan Harbor


belairbob

On 72 MHz, the frequencies that were
designated by colored flags are no longer
legal to fly. On the numbered 72 MHz channels,
transmitters without a gold AMA sticker are
wide band and require that you take the
pins for the channel above and below (if
you club allows them at all).

As far as I know all 2.4 GHz and all ham
frequencies are fine. Also 27 MHz is
as fine as it ever was (or wasn't).

Jenny

I would keep away from AM, but any dual conversion FM is still game for me, or 2.4. I guess it depends on your club rules. On anything though, Always watch out for the deadly black ground wire. When the batteries go dead, the ground wire goes black and brittle, sometimes up into the transmitter, or switch on the receiver.

I'm flying transmitters well over 20 years old..

Everyone is commenting but not answering your DX7 question. Here goes.
Your DX-7S can still be used safely as long as it's in good shape. If you want to be sure simply send it in to Horizon and for a small fee they will check it out for you, update software, or make repairs.
The new transmitters are great and they made a lot of improvements but if you are happy with yours ..........just keep using it !
If you want to upgrade keep your eye on Horizons site as they may have another program to trade-up/in. They just had a sale on transmitters so it might be awhile .

Hi

Consider, there are satellites, full of electronics, in Orbit for more then 30 years working still fine. Exept from the potentiometers inside your stick bearings there are no parts that suffer wear or Deterioration. Means your transmitter will be fine. However, it is a good idea to Change the battery with a new one and get the Transmission Output power and frequency checked.

Regards

Older electronics can have electrolytic capacitors that have a higher failure rate with age. The stick potentiometers are a wear point, particularly those that are miniature. Switches are another common trouble area.
Many of the connectors have a gold finish that, if real gold, are so thin that they can cause problems.

Old electronics if still working and range tests ok is no problem. In fact there are few still using them as they have all been convinced to go to 2.4. If you never had any problem with your equipment chances are you won't have any now. Big advantage there will be no wait time for a frequency pin as not many will be flying that band. Your battery packs may be your weak link replacing them might be a good idea if your going to use the older equipment. There are several guys still using the older equipment at our club without any problems at all.

Dennis

DX7 is probably the most reliable radio Spektrum put out in my book. I keep my old DX7 and when I had to send in the DX9 for repair, there was the DX7 to replace it 'till it came back.
Great reliable backup radio.

I've got a Futaba Attack-4, with the gold sticker dated '92. assuming the sticker came on the radio as new,...the radio is 24 years old. it works as good as my 6ex other than the programmability of the 6ex. it will be the radio I use in my trainer, to re-introduce myself to r/c flying this summer. the radio was given to me a few years ago, with a Sig Kadet LT40, that I decided to toss at the time, thinking I was never going to fly anymore,.... and of course , now I wish I still had the plane, as I decided to get back into r/c and just finished building a Spadet . it needed a new tx battery pack, of course (the RX pack actually holds a charge as good as new,...it maintains 5.1-4.9 volts for a week when fully charged, before voltage starts dropping) and a small soldering repair to a nicked antenna. I do know that the rx pack is 5-6 years old, but I have full faith in its working just fine when the weather gets better.... I've checked it out every way I know how. I really don't think age is all that much of a detriment to our radios, as long as they aren't something that is obviously very old, or show signs of neglect and/or abuse. I have a friend in Minnesota, that is flying on his dad's Heathkit, that I can remember being built by his dad, when we were about 10 or so years old.....that makes it 50 or so years old !. he also has a pulse radio that I can remember his dad using when I was in 3rd grade,..... that works perfectly fine, yet also.

One problem some people are having with computer radios is that the clock battery dies after 5-10 years. These can be replaced if sent back, but not sure what would happen if it died while you were flying.

if someone is flying a 50 year old Heathkit, hopefully major modifications were done. They were wide band and were on frequencies that are now illegal to use

i have Airtronic radios from 30 years ago that still work. I might put in a sailplane but nothing good as the servo wires etc seem to be getting brittle. Wires inside the TX probably are too

I still use the Futaba Attack, and old Airtronics radios too. I had to change batteries on all of them. One had the nasty black wire syndrome, and I have junked two for parts, as the sticks broke. I consider my DX 7 as my newest. I just use it for indoor stuff pretty much. I was not aware of the clock battery. Hope that is not a serious problem. I had to change the main 8 cell battery in that one too.

Hi- I am still using all of my older Futaba FG series 72MHZ radios. They are all gold stickered, and i bought a few that were AM, and installed the FM module in them. Then I sent them to Tony at Radiosouth, and had them completely gone over, new NIMH batteries installed, and completely tuned. They have worked flawlessly for the 30 or so years I have used them, never got hit, or had a glitch, and i just like them. Most of the flyers in our club have gone to 2.4, and i pretty much have the freq board all to myself. I have a TX for each of my planes, and have a couple TX's that I can use on 3 other planes with the same RX channel. I guess I'm too old to change and don't need all the extra bells and whistles, or programming hassles.

i'll agree, the programmability of my 6ex is really nice, but it takes a whole book to do anything to it. and in the end, both radios do the same thing, in that most benefits from "more than 4 channel" radios are things that you really don't need to fully accomplish and enjoy r/c flying. I think the greatest benefit to my 6ex is being able to have separate aileron channels and flaperons. this is one thing that cannot be had with a non computer 4-channel. most other programabilities, are issues that actually cheat the flyer out of actually learning all the points to flying r/c

Deanz406 is my twin bro' & although we both have the passion for flight, I am a bit opposite with the varying parameters of RC Tx's. Retreading back into RC in '90, I used my faithful JR Century VII & Hitec Challenger720 as they worked perfectly & I never had any issues with range or advanced flight needs. 5 yrs ago, at our monthly club meeting, a fellow club member brought his JR10X touchscreen computer radio & allowed me to examine it & all the features & I knew I wanted one. After getting a great buy on a very clean used one, it took me 3 months to learn how to use it, program the varying flight attributes available, & get a really good grasp of the power available to tailor my flying style & needs. I found it to give me everything i would ever need for the plane genres in my hangar. I use 72Mhz like my bro' & also the new 2.4Ghz freq. with the additional Spektrum DM-9 module on my 10X for flexibility. Our club is quite firm with using the 72Mhz freq. & assuring the Freq. pin board at our club field is used by each member flying with 72Mhz & thus have not had any issues. So, as you can see, we each have to determine needs & what type of Tx system benefits our usage. Everyone is different.

Denny