Spektrum Modules Available

Looks good Ed, except for the cost. I can convert my trusty JR 8103 (best radio in my stable) to 2.4 GHz SS for $300, or buy a Spectrum 7 for about the same. Not exactly a slam dunk for going with the conversion. Now if I had a 9103 or 10X the value tradeoff in converting might make more sense. Then again, we haven't seen the street prices yet.

Abel

| Then again, we haven't seen the street prices yet.

Are you sure we haven't?

The existing Spektrum stuff I've seen, it's almost never discounted, unless you find a hobby shop guy who will sell it `under the table'. This seems to apply to many (most? all?) of the brands sold by Horizon Hobby.

Looking at this page --

it already gives the inflated `list' price and then the `actual' price, and it's the actual price that I saw on the announcement.

Or, perhaps I should ask this differently ... where are you finding Spektrum stuff with lower `street prices'? For example, I know that the AR6000's price is $49.99. Is there a lower `street price' I should be aware of?

Oh Guys - you want cheaper and perhaps better? :-)) Then go here

Should be ready at the Toledo show!

Oops, I presumed it was the inflated list price. That nails it, my 8103 will stay on 72 MHz. And I had not yet factored in the cost of replacing a half-dozen receivers........

Abel

Tnx for the link, Ed. Ain't free market competition sumthin'?

Abel

---------------

At least they answered the question concerning the DX6 system's range (1,000 ft.). I don't recall seeing that anywhere else.

I have a DX6 and a DX7. With the price of the modules being so high, I doubt that I will be buying one for my 9303 or 8103. Then again, prices will probably come down after a while.

Ed Cregger

| >Oh Guys - you want cheaper and perhaps better? :-)) Then go here | >

Should be ready at the Toledo show! ...

| Tnx for the link, Ed. Ain't free market competition sumthin'?

Don't hold your breath on the XPS stuff. It was originally supposed to be out October 2006.

Looks like

up to 6256 posts, and presumably the entire thread is about XPS.

Granted, the stuff sounds really neat, but so far nobody has it. At least Spektrum has a track record ...

I don't think Horizon/Spektrum would agree with that figure, Ed. A member of my club with a tendency to be conservative enlisted another to take his DX6-equipped Easy Star to an identifiable point (on a topo map) 1760 feet away on a hillside within LOS. No sign of glitching. Single data point of no statistical significance - but I doubt that the figure cited by a competitor deserves any more credence.

Abel

| >At least they answered the question concerning the DX6 system's range (1,000 | >ft.). I don't recall seeing that anywhere else. | | I don't think Horizon/Spektrum would agree with that figure, Ed.

I don't actually recall Spektrum giving an actual range, but tests have shown it to be about 2000 feet.

| A member of my club with a tendency to be conservative enlisted | another to take his DX6-equipped Easy Star to an identifiable point | (on a topo map) 1760 feet away on a hillside within LOS. No sign of | glitching.

Glitching on PCM or the SS stuff is different than glitching on PPM gear. There will be no servos moving madly about -- they'll just stay still, not do what your TX tells them to do. So it's possible that at

1700 feet that only a small fraction of the frames were getting through -- enough that you could still fly the plane, but it's so far away that you didn't notice that it wasn't responding very quickly. Just maybe.

Either way, this chart that XPS just put out at

is pretty biased. `Radio speed' doesn't matter. `Frequency hopping' isn't nessesarily a good thing or a bad thing. For a resolution above 1024, nobody's gonna notice. And since they're not producing their own all-digital TX, you're limited to the 10-12 bits of resolution you'll get out of your radio -- looks like 12 is the absolute maximum, so that's only 4096 -- not the claimed 65536, even if their system can handle it.

Operating voltage? Some niche applications might care, but most won't. They didn't try very hard to figure out the DX7 warranty -- two minutes on google told me that it has a 3 year warranty.

Telemetry/bi-directional, that's a potential real feature. But I didn't think the initial XPS units would have that ...

But they forgot the most important bullet points ...

Can buy now: Yes Yes No No Proven Track record: Yes Yes Yes/No No

(Yes/No = Futaba has a proven R/C track record, and even with spread spectrum R/C gear, but this model is unproven.)

| Single data point of no statistical significance - but I doubt that | the figure cited by a competitor deserves any more credence.

Yeah, I wouldn't trust it too much.

That said, if the XPS stuff comes out and lives up to the hype, I'll probably plop down several hundred dollars and start migrating my more commonly flown planes. But I'm not holding my breath.

subject was: Re: Want Cheaper? Spektrum Modules Available

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:20:05 -0500, "Ed Forsythe" wrote in :

I'm planning to be at Toledo Friday and Saturday.

I'll be with a couple of other guys, so I don't have total control of my schedule.

Still, it would be fun to run into people from the group, if possible.

Anyone going to have a booth there? Some fixed check-in point?

Marty

I'll be at the FMA Direct booth on Saturday and Sunday, would love to meet some of the newsgroup guys.

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:42:20 -0500, "Red Scholefield" wrote in :

Marvelous!

Everybody come on over and say hi to Red!

Marty

If I get there I'll see ya Red :)