Robot RC

GWS makes some of the cheapest stuff out there. Bear in mind that quality
follows price.
It should also be noted that using an aircraft radio for surface use is a
definate no no, and therefor, your options are limited in the durface types
of radio.

Hello,


could you please give a short explanation why that is a "no no"?

I'am planning also to use a RC for demonstration of the robot's hardware
and i can not see why a aircraft RC is different to a RC for a boat or a
car...

I've looked for used RC at eBay and cheap products at some online stores
and found no specialities for aircraft RC.

Maybe there is a difference in RC's between Germany and the rest of the
world?

Thnx in advance,
 Andreas.

In the US the Federal Communications Commission "allows" use of radio
frequencies without an operator license for specific purposes, as long
as any restrictions for that purpose are followed. The reason for the
restrictions: For radio control models used in urban areas, interference
is possible that could lead to damage to personal property or even
bystanders, especially aircraft models. This can happen if two
transmitters are operating on the same frequency.

To prevent someone's plane from falling to the ground when the engine of
an RC car revs up, the FCC separates air and ground RC freqencies -- 72
MHz for air (channels 11-60) and 75 MHz for ground (channels 61+). This
lessens (but doesn't totally avoid) possibly dangerous interfeence.
There are additional frequencies in the 27 and 50 MHz ranges for general
applications.


Technically you should use ground frequencies for a ground-based robot,
but the thing is aircraft transmitters generally offer more channels
than ground transmitters ("channels" here means control channels, not
channels within a frequency group). Ground transmitters also tend to use
pistol-grip controls, which isn't always helpful for bot operation -- at
least IMO. So people tend to cheat, or opt for transmitters that accept
crystals for both air and ground. Not all joystick-based radios can
accept crystals for both air and ground, so it pays to check first.


All bets are off, as Germany has its own communications laws. This
assumes your demo is in Germany ... if it's in the US, you need to
follow US regs.

-- Gordon

Vantec will modify Aircraft radios for surface operation.

The same kind of rules apply to the UK so he really needs to double check the
situation in Germany as well. Details in RA60:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/ra/publication/ra_info/ra60.htm

BTW, on a related note, OFCOM (who took over the functions of the
Radiocommunications Agency) consider telemetry _from_ a model aircraft to
the ground to be a non-terrestrial application and hence you can't use any
general purpose license free band other than 433MHz to transmit telemetry
from such a model aircraft...

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
If Google's motto is "do no wrong", then how did we get Google Groups 2 ?

Because if you are using an aircraft R/C while not hanging out at the
local modell plae airfield, where you have the opportunity to talk about
used and unused frequencies, you may very well interfere with an
aircraft flying near your transmitter and make it crash, possibly
hurting or event killing a person.

You may like to risk that, but I wouldnt't.

Oh, and secondly, because it is illegal.