So I guess it was the radio, huh?

DUH!

What you're looking for is another crack on the PC board, or a fractured crystal, capacitor, tuning slug, or other component. If you don't want to send it in for PROPER repair, replace it.

"Seems to be"??? If you ain't sure, don't play with it. A little knowlege is dangerous. AND illegal.

On the other hand, I'm glad you're both interested in R/C. Do yourselves a favor and do it right, not slap-hazardly, makeshift, or shade-tree engineered. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

If your oscilloscope has high enough bandwidth, you should be able to see the carrier - however, to do so your scope needs to be at least twice the sampling frequency of your radio - if you're on 40MHz you'd need a 80MHz scope, if you're on 72MHz you'd need a 150MHz scope - most standard analogue scopes are only 10 or 20MHz. If it is good enough, you don't need a direct connection, just a length of wire connected to the probe.

If the scope isn't an option, you might find your RX is sufficient to monitor the TX's behaviour while you stress it - standard routine is to heat up the board with a heat gun, then cool it with a cold spray - or put it in the freezer, then hit it with the heat gun while you watch your servos to see if it misbehaves. By combining this with flexing the PCB, you can narrow the fault to a board crack, or a faulty component.

That said, these kinds of faults can be very hard to identify - I've just lost 2 planes in a row to what I now conclude must be a faulty RX (or switch) - both were at full throttle when the radio went off the air, leading to plane-shattering crashes. The first I though was my fault, the next was at the hands of a very experienced instructor. Very depressing when I think I could have saved the second plane if I'd correctly identified the fault after the first crash .

Russ.

Hi Russ;

Sorry to hear about your two planes. Yep - if I'd done a little more research on the first crash, I might have saved a couple more.

I think I already know the answer - it looks like I have two receivers telling me the same story (namely, "quit flying us around with THAT radio!")

Thanks! Dan.

Actually, in my opinion it really was interference. Let me tell you my story...

I used to fly all my planes using a Futaba 8UAP transmitter which has memories for lots of models. For years I flew on channel 51 with no problems, ever. Then one day I took a couple of park flyers down to my local schoolyard and found that on both of them the prop would start and stop spontaneously when I didn't command it, even with the transmitter on and sitting right next to the plane. This went on over the course of half an hour. This was clearly interference -- two different planes, different brands of receivers, both responding the same way at the same time on the same channel.

Shortly thereafter I went to a fly-in at one of my local clubs and encountered the same problem. Strong interference on channel 51. The interference was causing problems on all of my planes, both with single conversion and with dual conversion receivers, so I can only assume that it was either right on my frequency or on an adjacent frequency and so strong that it was swamping the receivers. I searched up and down the flightline for a transmitter that was inadvertently turned on or set to the wrong channel, but found nothing. I went home flightless but intact.

At this point I decided that somebody or something new was on or near my chosen channel and that it was time to move. So I bought a new Futaba

9CAP transmitter on channel 49 and new crystals for all my receivers.

All seemed well for a while until a couple of months ago when I crashed my 50" electric Gypsy Moth while flying at the local club. I can't prove it, but I do believe it was interference -- the plane suddenly started doing rolls that I didn't command. I got control back briefly and was bringing it back to land when it went crazy again and dove in. I couldn't find any problems in the transmitter or receiver after the crash.

Frustrated, I ordered a handheld scanner (Icom ICR5) and programmed it to scan channel 48, 49, 50 and the frequencies in between. I took the scanner down to the same schoolyard where I started my story, together with the same two park flyers. I immediately found a strong signal between channels 49 and 50 -- strong enough to max out the signal strength meter on the scanner. The signal seemed to come in bursts lasting two or three seconds. It consisted of tones only, no voice. Interestingly the park flyers didn't seem to respond much to this signal on channel 49-and-a-half, even with their single conversion receivers, so I took a chance and flew them. I was able to get four flights in without incident.

The point of my story is that there is RF interference out there and it is becoming more common. I also know that schoolyards are common locations for cell phone antennas. I know that cell phones operate in a completely different band, but once you have a tower for a cell phone antenna, it seems like a natural step to add an antenna for some other service to the same tower. And maybe that other service can cause trouble for us R/C users.

Jeff Bean Paradise Valley, Arizona

| Frustrated, I ordered a handheld scanner (Icom ICR5)

Nice -- wouldn't mind one of those at all :) Alas, the scanners I have are technically capable of receiving 72mhz, but it's locked out :\

| and programmed it | to scan channel 48, 49, 50 and the frequencies in between. I took the | scanner down to the same schoolyard where I started my story, together | with the same two park flyers. I immediately found a strong signal | between channels 49 and 50 -- strong enough to max out the signal | strength meter on the scanner. The signal seemed to come in bursts | lasting two or three seconds. It consisted of tones only, no voice.

Well, you do know that we share the 72mhz band with pagers, right? This certainly sounds like a pager ...

With a Yagi antenna and maybe an antenuator, you could probably find the tower that's causing the inferference. [ read on ]

Of course, what you really need to check is if this pager signal is staying within it's allocated bandwidth or not. If you were able to narrow down exactly which tower it came from (with the Yagi I mentioned earlier. Your local ham club may be able to help.) you might be able to give them a call and ask them to verify it -- I don't know how friendly they'd be to that, but it's worth a try.

You're right - there is definitely more RF flying about these days - while most of the new services (cellphones, WiFi) are well away from RC frequencies, I imagine that high-powered point-to-point links using highly directional antennas (as you might find between two cell towers) would disturb any RX that came into its path.

Russ.

Russ - it's awfully hard to second guess the experiences of others, if we were not there to see it. But, in all the questionable situations that I've either seen, or had happen to me in a state of inattention, almost all come down to a switch failure in the plane. It looks like you might be suspecting that yourself. It's a damn shame about the poor quality these manufacturers supply in their switches, in my opinion they are definitely the weakest link in the chain. Just my opinion, though, but others keep on having to learn it for themselves too. Good luck in working it out.

Olin McDaniel

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----------------------------------------------------- "Ignorance is treatable, Stupidity is incurable. Sometimes the difference is hardly distinguishable, however."

If you fly in an area as risky as that, you might take a look at the Polk's Hobbies "Tracker II" radio. It not only has a scanner built into it, but it's synthesized as well so you can first check the frequency you want to use to make sure it's clear, and then select that frequency on the radio (and of course also on the accompanying synthesized receiver) and go fly.

To manage the kind of interference problems you're having, the Tracker is a pretty good deal at $275 for a fully SYNTHESIZED 8-channel computerized TX with SCANNER (all built in.. no add-on modules needed) and at that price, includes the "Seeker", their synthesized receiver.

MJC