Opinions about radio equipment

[Foolwitools]

Hi Guys!

I am basicly a pleasure boater running mostly outboard tunnels. I am interested in doing some IMPBA competition this comming season. At the few races I attended last year, I didn't see any of the radio equipment I use at the transmitter impound. I'm wondering if it is going to be a problem for me..........

I have several sets based on the Futaba3EGX/75mhz/AM transmitter. I think they are still one of the best set-ups ever. Other than they are AM as opposed to FM, is there a reason I shouldn't want to try to compete with this system??

What can you tell me? Bob the Fool :blink:

 

[ScottVanSlooten]

As long as your radio is of the right ferq. band then if you are comortable with it then tyr it .

 

[Ron Olson]

As long as you like it and are comfortable with it, use it!

 

[Mike Hughes]

The only problem I can see is if they are narrow banded or not. I am not familiar with that transmitter. If they are not, you can send them into Futaba and they will retune them to be narrow banded. If you do not do this you will bleed your signal over onto the odd channels and interfere with them. The other option would be to grab each odd clip either side of your channel. The problem with this is the heats would have to be set up so that no one on those odd channel ran in your heat. This is more work for a club and probably is not feasible.

Mike

 

[Rudy Formanek]

The newer recievers are much more selective(size of the window the reciever looks through) than the older radios because they have to operate with only 20 MHZ spacing instead of 80 Mhz. If you are going to race, there will be four other guys racing with you. Some of them may splat onto your recievers bigger viewing window.(even though they are narrow banded) Add the fact that each transmitter's antenna also recieves every other transmitter's signal, mixes with it's own and rebroadcasts it which may even put some signals closer than 20MHZ. This is called the 3IM problem. If your are racing, I believe you should be using a double conversion radio or the JR ABW&C, these recievers have the best selectivity. I don't believe Futaba will gold sticker your transmitter (narrow band it), but people like Kraft Midwest or Radio South may be able to do it. Your still gonna need a new reciever to really be right. A new reciever is about $60.00, add $40.00 for 4 servos(which everyone can use) and your real close to the cost of a new radio. Your batteries were getting tired anyway weren't they? They'd be in the new radio. That switch harness is starting to get pretty ratty. Might just be time to retire that radio, huh??

 

[Terry Keeley]

I've used those transmitters for a lot of years now but started having problems in the mid 90's with the wide band receivers, even with everyone narrow banded. I went to RCD Platinum "dual conversion" receivers and ran glitch free. Too bad, I just sold them on e-Bay very cheap.

So, to race with those TX's you'd need to have them narrow banded and you'd need a modern am receiver on surface freq's. The RCD's I had used special crystals not available anymore.

Recently I found some old 27 band FM modules and combined with the Hitec DCX receivers I'll probably run them another 20 years.

 

[apache5056]

D&M Electronics

Contact this guy, Dave. He's not the cheapest for sure, but he's one of the best radio guys I know. That, and he's local to me and radio guys are few and far between... :unsure:

 

[Terry Keeley]

It was Dave that sold me the RCD Platinum rx's with the special surface crystals...