I'm new to combat and in the process of building a Slasher. I've a Hitec Feather rx out of an electric with range to 1000' that I want to use. From combat I've witnessed, it's all up close and occasionally personal. Any of you experienced folks see any problem with this choice in rx?

Thanks!

It's a single conversion RX. I personally wouldn't use it, though there might be some guys who do.

The problem isn't the range, it's that in combat, you get a lot of transmitters going at the same time in close proximity, resulting in a lot of intermodulation, which basically results in a lot of noise all over the band. Duel conversion RX's are better at filtering through that mess.

The RX's range is really more a measure of how good it is as picking out the proper signal from the background noise. As the RX gets farther from your TX, the signal it's looking for gets weaker compared to the background noise. If you increase the background noise, as in combat, the "range" falls off dramatically.

I recently bought a new GWS 4 channel park fly receiver for my combat plane thinking the same thing that it could be used because your mostly within 300-600 feet from the flight line. The cost was only $20.00 new with a $9 dollar Futaba crystal.

On my first flight out at around 200 feet, I noticed a disturbing intermittant (and thankfully, short) loss of control. This was during a .15 SSC round with 4-6 other combatants and as was previously noted, I believe the intermittance was due to radio interference from other's nearby.

After replacing the receiver with a standard Futaba model, there has been no repeat of this problem. I really hated spending $57 dollars plus another $11 for a receiver and crystal but it just wasn't safe in my opinion to run a single conversion receiver.

That makes sense...looks like i'm buying another receiver.

As always, great advice to be had 'round here.
Thanks.

Btw, the most popular RX's in combat are the Hitec 555 and the new Electron 6. They have proven to be durable and able to handle even "worst case" heats and flightlines.

Personally, I've used some FMA RX's as well. The FMA RX's are a bit on the fragile side, espeically the caseless ones. (I now won't run any caseless RX's in combat. A well designed case can really make the difference between a working RX and a broken one after a hard mid-air).

Polk makes a small 6 channel RX that is crystal-less. That could mean one less thing to break (crystals are fragile by nature), and if you have a synth TX, like the Polk or Hitec, then you can change channels if you get to contest and have a frequency conflict. I haven't seen one in person, so I have no idea how it will hold up to combat use. A couple of guys have them and are happy with them as far as I know. But until they've been out in the field for a little while, I'd hold off if you can't afford a backup RX.

(btw, for that reason, I travel with crystals on 2 channels. In my case, I have enough ch 27 and ch 19 in my box to change most of my planes over if I need to. I have a few oddballs as well, just in case).

Just my .002 but the power put out by the TX is what determines the range off the signal. A cats whisker can detect any thing it is tuned to!

If you were operating in a totally clear, perfect envrionment, yes, I'd agree with you. And if you want to nit-pick and talk about the range of the signal as opposed to the useable range of the link between the TX and the RX, then I'd agree with you.

However, In the real world, radio range isn't determined by weither the RX can pick up any part of the signal, it's determined by the RX's ability to pick up the entire signal error-free (or error free enough to fly, a dropped frame here or there doesn't matter).

So, the question isn't whether an RX can or can't see the signal, it's whether the RX can pick the signal out of the background noise and make enough sense of it to guide the plane.

And that means that in the real world, differnet receivers do, in fact, have different useable ranges given the same TX.

For most quality RX's, the useable range is line of sight, as it should be. But there ARE some inexpensive RX's made specifically for the park flyer market that are just not suitable for applications like RC Combat.

I use the Hitec HFS-04MG exclusively for combat now. I've been using them for over a year without a single glitch. They are $20 cheaper than the 555's, so you can buy 3 for the price of 3 555's.