I was out a couple of weekends ago going to local yard sales and found a Futaba Attack 4 radio for $25. I was wondering if this radio is any good. I got the radio, 4 servos, a receiver, and some odd and end parts in I'm guessing what is the original box. What should I check for as far as function and what not. I'm a complete newcomer to this hobby and not sure if I got a good deal or not. Any help would be appreciated.
Peter
Read the FAQ at
That particular radio has not been manufactured for several years. It is still legal, but you might have to replace the transmitter and receiver batteries. Of course, you do not know if it was damaged in a crash, so it should really be checked out more than just a range check done by you. There are some bargains, but there are some "pig in a poke" also. Is the plural of pig in a poke pigs in a poke or pig in a pokes?
| > >I was out a couple of weekends ago going to local yard sales and found a | > >Futaba Attack 4 radio for $25. I was wondering if this radio is any good. I | > >got the radio, 4 servos, a receiver, and some odd and end parts in I'm | > >guessing what is the original box. What should I check for as far as | > >function and what not. I'm a complete newcomer to this hobby and not sure if | > >I got a good deal or not. Any help would be appreciated.
It sounds like an ok deal, assuming it all works ok.
Find a friend more familiar with the hobby to check it out, though.
| > Read the FAQ at
| That particular radio has not been manufactured for several years. It | is still legal,
So all the Attack radios are legal? (I forget the model numbers.) That's good to know.
| but you might have to replace the transmitter and | receiver batteries.
By might, he means almost certainly if they're the original batteries. If you can solder battery packs, you can buy 3 packs of 4 900 mAh NiCd batteries at Wal-Mart for $5.17 each and get yoursef set up that way. If not,
| Of course, you do not know if it was damaged in a crash, so it | should really be checked out more than just a range check done by | you.
You could always send it back to the manufacturer or a repair shop and have them check it out properly, but that's probably not really cost effective. At the least, you should do a good range check, perhaps finding some friends with radios on adjacent frequencies and see if y'all interfere with each other, and check your receiver carefully for any obvious physical damage. Definately, if you've still got the original batteries, replace them -- they may work now, but are likely to only work for a few minutes. With a cycler you could measure their capacity, but I'm guessing you don't have one. So just replace them unless you can accurately measure their capacity and find them to be close to their original specifications.
This ia an AM radio, and I don't think it has a buddy box connection, so it won't be very useful for a trainer plane if you were intending to use a buddy box. AM radios don't reject interference quite as well as FM, but they're ok. Since you don't know it's history, I wouldn't trust a large/expensive plane to it, at least not at first.
| There are some bargains, but there are some "pig in a poke" | also. Is the plural of pig in a poke pigs in a poke or pig in a | pokes?
At $25, it can't really be that bad, unless several things are broken.
For comparison, if you were to buy this all new, you'd probably be looking at $140 or so. (Of course, you'd probably get an FM radio and new batteries.)
Instructions to add a buddy box to a Futaba Attack4: (Just in case anyone needs to do this...)
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