Darwin, The excitement around the DX7 is the promise of glitch free, shoot down proof flying. Most of the soaring population are having a great time on lesser radios than the 14MZ, the 9303 or even the Futaba 9C. For them the DX7 has plenty of capabilities.
The Spektrum DX6, which was released last year for parkflyers and small gliders. It received strong acceptance and has been extensively field tested by users. There are literally hundreds of reports posted on the forums. Spektrum suggests 1500 feet for the radio/receiver, but there are many reports out beyond 3000. That doesn't surprise me as my Hitec receivers are rated for a mile but I have seen informal reports that they still work at 2 miles. Seems a 50% derating is standard procedure. The real issue has been around signal view. The DX6 receiver is actually two receivers in one with two antenna oriented at 90 degrees. If one loses the signal, the other can still hold it. But, due to the short wavelength, there was concern that large dense RF shielding objects, like glow and gas motors or fuel tanks, could blank the signal to both antenna. That is why the new receiver has two pieces that spread apart by 2 inches. This makes it much hard to blank the signal to both receivers. http://www.spektrumrc.com/DSM/Technology.aspx My interest will be on how it does with carbon fuselages. These carbon fuselages give many 72 MHz receivers trouble, or at least reduces their effective range. Also the DX6 had warnings about metallic coverings and white coverings with are rich in metallic content. I don't know what they are saying in that regard these days. If you read the field reports, the DX6 has performed at longer ranges and with fewer incidents then might have been expected. Certainly it has proven to be at least as good as the 72 MHz FM systems when working within 2000 feet in electric and glider models. And there are a number of people who have flown them in their glow planes and reported good success. If the DX7 and the new receiver live up to their advertised performance, then it should not take Spektrum very long to get this technology into a JR 9303 as their radios are based on JR chassis. The DX7 may not be up to contest radio standards but I wouldn't be surprised if that is intentional. Open class sailplanes are probably the models that are flown at the greatest distances of all hobby RC models. Perhaps they are not ready to target the contest sailplane market. Best Regards, Ed Anderson ----- Original Message ----- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 22:57:10 -0700 From: "Darwin N. Barrie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I believe this will be the norm in the next few years. It will take a = while for everyone to make the transition. I'm still concerned about the = range, so I'll wait for some of you to put a $1500 moldy a half a mile = down range and see if it still works. Is it the spread spectrum that = makes it so exciting? I don't get it!!! Futaba has some big stuff coming as well. The information is being held = very tightly, so I suspect it will be good. I'm also confused as to the excitement level on this radio that has = limited sailplane capability (actually none), when the Futaba 12MZ will = do virtually anything a sailplane pilot will need. The 14MZ definitely = will. Yeah they are more expensive but you won't need to upgrade every = couple of years. Also these systems are extremely easy to program. I = have no specific knowledge but think Spread Spectrum will be coming to = these systems before long. Now that is something to get excited = about!!!! Darwin N. Barrie Chandler AZ ------=_NextPart_000_010D_01C6F3D1.E8CC5EE0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; = charset=3Diso-8859-1"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2900.2963" name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>I believe this will be the norm in the = next few=20 years. It will take a while for everyone to make the transition. I'm = still=20 concerned about the range, so I'll wait for some of you to put a $1500 = moldy a=20 half a mile down range and see if it still works. Is it the spread = spectrum that=20 makes it so exciting? I don't get it!!!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Futaba has some big stuff coming as = well. The=20 information is being held very tightly, so I suspect it will be=20 good.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>I'm also confused as to the excitement = level on=20 this radio that has limited sailplane capability (actually none), when = the=20 Futaba 12MZ will do virtually anything a sailplane pilot will need. The = 14MZ=20 definitely will. Yeah they are more expensive but you won't need to = upgrade=20 every couple of years. Also these systems are extremely easy to program. = I have=20 no specific knowledge but think Spread Spectrum will be coming to these = systems=20 before long. Now that is something to get excited about!!!!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Darwin N. Barrie</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Chandler AZ</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML> ------=_NextPart_000_010D_01C6F3D1.E8CC5EE0-- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 05:55:18 -0400 From: Ed Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Soaring@airage.com Subject: Re: Soaring V1 #8465 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Chip, Soon I don't think you will need that regulator. Hitec just released a new set of receivers and they are all rated for 3.7 to 7.4V. Funny but that maps to 1 and 2 cell lithium. ;-) Best Regards, Ed Anderson From: Chip Willis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: soaring@airage.com Subject: Lithium Ion batteries Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> FWIW, I haven't seen many people discuss it, but I have been using Li-ion batteries for a while. I flew the entire two day contest at the Fall round up, on a single charge. I use Fromeco 2400 two cell batteries, and I checked the voltage periodically and I had plenty to spare. I could have flown for another two hours I estimate. Again, this is in a 3 servo Ava so not too much draw there. I use a MPI 6v regulator to step down the volts, and so far so good. I am building a Supra now, and It is quite an investment, so i'm thinking of running dual batteries in it. I was flying giant scale and running dual rx batteries is almost standard over 30 percent airplanes, and with the sizes available, redundancy kinda makes sense. Anyone else doing this or thinking of it? Chip ------------------------------ End of Soaring V1 #8466 *********************** RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
