On Sat, Apr 16, 2005 at 12:49:25AM +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | If it ain't type accepted then it ain't legal at sanctioned | contests.
As others have suggested, this does not apply to ham band equipment. Ham band equipment does not require type-acceptance, though if mass produced (as most R/C equipment is) it usually is type-accepted, because if not type-accepted, only one non type-accepted transmitter can be made per ham operator per year. I'd have to dig up the regulations to know exactly how the limitation works, though certainly nobody keeps track of this sort of thing -- the main purpose is to stop people from churning out things like illegal CB amplifiers. And there's nothing special about a sanctioned contest here, except that they pay closer attention to the rules/laws. If it's illegal there, it's illegal elsewhere as well. [Yes, this is all specific to the US.] FCC regulations do allow qualified persons to modify type certified equipment, and I'm not sure if changing the transmitting antenna qualifies (as long as the new antenna has no signifigant gain) or not. (But changing the crystal definately qualifies.) And I'm not sure what qualifications would be required to make this sort of simple modification. http://www.vantec.com/FCCregs1.htm gives a good summary of the FCC regulations related to R/C usage, though they don't apply to stuff in the 50 mHz band. | Mind you, I don't care and I'm not going to complain, but there is | someone out there that might, so if I were you, I'd keep the standard | long, ugly antenna in my flight box at all times. Probably not a bad idea. Even though changing the antenna on a 50 mHz radio is perfectly legal, you may run into a CD who doesn't understand this and can't be convinced. | > I have tried the Smiley on a Futaba 8U on 50MHz. I got significant | > glitching even at short range. I never got around to re-testing it on | > 72MHz. I did just now (4/14) contact Smiley asking if the regular | > antenna was acceptable for use on 50 MHz. I really would like to get | > rid of that long telescope. Well, the standard antenna is acceptable for use on 50 mHz, even though the length is usually more appropriate for 72 mHz use, so I've always assumed that the 50 mHz module (and the ones for other bands, like 35, 40, 27 mHz, etc.) had the appropriate matching circuitry. (Certainly, you don't change antennas when you change your module.) And if so, then it would match the smiley antenna just as well as the smiley antenna is matched with a 72 mHz module. But rubber ducky antennas like the smiley _are_ known to create a 10 dB or so reduction in signal strength over a standard 1/4 wave antenna (though the exact figure depends on a great many factors), so that would cause a signifigant reduction in range, but I wouldn't expect it to start causing glitching unless you exceeded that range. Perhaps things were marginal before, and the smilie was the `straw that broke the camel's back'? Obviously you're a ham if you're legally using the transmitter, but maybe you don't have the proper equipment to listen to the signal. You might want to find another ham with a 50 mHz FM receiver to listen to the signal for you, with both antennas and start from there. Many scanners would work OK for this, though they often don't give a good idea of the relative strength of a signal. (A spectrum analyzer would be good too, but they're expensive and not too many people have them.) -- Doug McLaren, [EMAIL PROTECTED], AD5RH MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL! SEND $9.95 FOR MORE DETAILS! 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
