Darrol Cady

I am a pylon racer. While flying our 175 MPH racers at 20 to 30 feet of altitude, we need a very reliable connection from our thumbs to the airplanes. Spektrum does the job. We operate our radio gear in a severe environment. High vibration is probably our toughest test. With the 72MHz receivers, the weakest parts in them are crystals and crystal filters. With Spektrum, there are none. Normal vibration problems are gone. I mount my receivers with hook and loop on the side of the fuselage. With the solid state technology, it is not a problem for me.

When I first heard about Spektrum, I knew it was the wave of the future, and the future is here. The first Spektrum that I had was a DX6. I used it exclusively in my foamies and it worked flawlessly.

When the DX7 came out, I got one from the first production run. The programming was very familiar, as it was very similar to the JR8103. I immediately put it in a new racer and headed to the flying field for testing. Range checked well and it was time to fly it. That day I was convinced that the Spektrum was the radio of choice for racing. I was one of the very first to show up at a race with Spektrum. Now it is common place.

All of my racers had AR7000 seven channel receivers in them. They worked great. Last summer, the AR6200 full range 6-channel receiver came out. I replaced the AR7000 receivers in all of my Q40s and again headed for the flying field. Notice, that I have so much confidence in this new technology that I do not do my testing in an old airplane. (I dont have any.)

One of the main reasons I hear from modelers why they do not want to change is because they have so much of the older equipment to use up. A light comes on when I remind them that they can use all their servos, batteries and switches with their new Spektrum. Any of the other brands work with Spektrum.

One of my favorite features of the DSM2 Spektrum technology is ModelMatch. With ModelMatch, you no longer have to worry about being on the correct model before you take off. When you bind your airplane properly to the DSM2 transmitter, the radio will not work and the throttle will be set at low or off. No chance of crashing or being way out of trim because you forgot to change models in the transmitter when you went to a different model.

No need to think that you are being a Guinea Pig with Spektrum. This system was not only thoroughly tested before it came available, but now it is a proven technology by many users. I have not seen any problems with Spektrum. Dont be afraid to make the change. You will like it.

-Darrol Cady

Don Lowe

Reprinted with permission from the Huntsville RCRC club newsletter:

First of all let me add a word about your modest president. He was indeed at the SPA/BPA contest held in Orlando but he neglected to say that he won his category handily with some good flying. That said, let me get on to a topic I would like to discuss a bit; the technology revolution that we are seeing in our hobby. This time I would like to talk about the new SS 2.4 gig radio systems that are emerging.

As you may know our RC hobby has thrived on pioneering work done in the early days by guys like Walter Good. Walt was instrumental in persuading the FCC to give modelers the first frequency available for model use--27.255 meg. Up to then only ham bands were of any use. Obviously as modelers took advantage of this breakthrough it was quickly saturated and we needed more help. Walt was successful in the obtaining several more 27 meg. FREQs and this worked for a while until CB operations, a lot of it illegal made it unsafe. So back to the FCC went AMAs freq. committee and they gave us a few shared 72 meg FREQs. More improvement was needed so back they went and were granted the multitude of 72meg (for planes) and 75 meg for non flying models. This has worked pretty well for a long time although the AMA has had to beat off usurpers from time to time. This system does require caution in use of frequencies to avoid "shootdowns". These frequencies are also subject to interference from electronic "noise" in the aircraft and care must be exercised in setting up the equipment in the aircraft. Some difficulty has been seen from "spillover" of other users on adjacent frequencies.

Then along came the bright idea of using the Spread Spectrum concept and frequencies used for quite some time by cell phones and other remote control applications. This concept basically uses two technical approaches; the one used by Horizon Hobbies and now JR which basically locks onto two unused frequencies at startup. No other xmtr will grab these frequencies until they are released by xmtr shut off. Up to 40 xmtrs could be in use at the same time using this approach. To date this has proven very successful with a lot of flying around the country and at events.

The other system use Frequency "hopping" where it constantly looks for open freqs for data transmission. This concept also seems to work well for model control. At present Horizon (who owns Spektrum) and Jr are using the freq. grabbing technique. Futaba, Extreme Power Systems and now Airtronics use freq. hopping.

The Spektrum systems have been on the market for some time for non airplane applications. Since last year I have flown most of the Spektrum aircraft systems in ten different models. The first system, the DX6 which Horizon restricted to small aircraft has been flown extensively in larger aircraft with a "buddy" backup 72 meg system on board for safety. In many flights I had one control interrupt at great distance. I have flown the DX7, the module systems and now the JR 9303 2.4 in several aircraft. My experience with these systems convinces me that SS is here to stay and I have a lot of 72 meg stuff for sale.

I have flown the Futaba FAAST 6 ch. and a Futaba module system a limited number of times--with success. I have flown the Xtreme system quite a bit also. I had some lockout difficulty with it until they modified the Xmtr antenna setup.

I am convinced that successful systems should have multiple rcvr antenni to lower the probability of the extremely short .antenna blockage by metallic objects and the fuel supply in model aircraft. The biggest concern by many was the difficulty of antenna function due to their very small size in a maneuvering aircraft.

Over the past several months I have witnessed two instances of shootdown due to carelessness in our operations with 72 meg. I have also seen several instances of range reduction due to EMI completely cured by a switch to SS Needless to say, that based on my own flying experiences and witnessing SS use at events and by others SS is here to stay. It sure is neat to simply turn on your xmtr anytime you want without the fear of harming someone else. SS also makes setting up and controlling ops at events so much easier.

-Don Lowe