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Guys,
Quit guessing and surmising. Like I said, this module has
proven its value and reliability over the last 10 years or so. Its not
some experimental thing that has to be accommodated suddenly. Again if a
'problem' were going to exist, Manufacturers wouldn't have decided to let us
have them.
Frequent channel hopping on these units is probably not a great idea
from a maintenance point of view. The little switches are plastic and will wear
out. The groove in the switches is also plastic and will round over with time.
So if your moving a lot, you're gonna break it after a while.
Seems like a logical point! But the reality has shown, its
nuthin but frettin...I have hundreds of hours of use on those switches with more
than frequent switching during a days time, lots of days every week. They
have no sensitivity to use, more use than 99% of the users will likely put them
to. So the answer is....the switches and plastic don't wear out. The
Grove is possible to 'damage' if you don't use the right size driver, supplied
with the modules and available from Radio Shack (I think as its a 'tuning' wand,
and likely also available from Hitec, etc.) the Hitec version wand snaps on to
the carry handle, and I have yet to loose one in the ten years or so of
use...and traveling. They have been rained on, froze, and filled with
dust... and they keep in twisting and doing their job. (by the way, unlike you
all, I have mine tested each year to make sure its still as accurate and up to
spec as the day I bought it...its never varied. When is the last time you
have had your modules tuned? Don't YOU all care about safety and the other
guys airplanes? Maybe a flag to remind you to have your
equipment serviced each year would help :-)
No way you can tell the frequency without a pretty good
squint into the little compartment. Even then it's hard - at least on my aging
eyes. So some form of flag or larger indicator would be advisable.
Yep they are small, but unless its really dark, I am
pretty sure, we all know where
12,3,6,9 is on a clock face and if you can't make it
out, there is always a younder friend to insure proper position of the dials
and....Nope a flag would not be advisable... no flag is
going to work because like remembering to check the dials, if you don't have the
correct flag (and you'd have to have all 50 flags, ...if you can't take a look
at the dial, you won't know which flag to display:-) You all know which
channels are used in your clubs, so you have settled into your channels.
Changing happens when you go somewhere else, or to accomodate a visitor...but
now no accommodate is needed, Xtal less TX and Rx's mean no longer having to
share freqs..a great thing.
The fact is this...all of you guys have not been changing freqs
hourly or even weekly, so quit your worrying.
I already posted the simplest and surest safety system...for everyone to police their own settings and to check others (besides having the pin) The Tower Hobby personal Channel Scanner Display...Turn it on first, dial up your channel, and turn it on...the Display's 60 LEDS will indicate the channel for confirmation (if you are paranoid about the dials) look at it this way...MORE attention is going to be paid to channel awareness, not less. I don't know a practical way to do that yet so I'll keep
my existing freq pins - another argument for changing channels only on a
critical need basis
Again, you haven't been hoping channels because you have
settled into your local usages, but now, its possible to not have to share, even
with visitors, with a Tx that is likely cleaner in its output, and we will soon
have a personal scanner to add some safety margin to our channel
use.
In all my travels and flying I have yet to meet
these dumb guys who can't seem to be careful about frequency use that some of
you seem to be wanting to legislate for.
So to sum it up, their dials and slots haven't worn, the
modules have stayed in tune without need of adjustment, and not remembering
which channel its been dialed to hasn't caused any chaos over the past near
decade of use.
If you buy a Synth module, get one of the Hobbico
personal frequency display scanners. ( by the way a neat feature is that any
channels recoginzed as 'active' will keep their LEDs lit, even though the
scanning continues!)
Gordy
Nashville tonite, Tullahoma soaring Saturday and
Sunday |
- [RCSE] Futaba Tx Synth Module GordySoar
