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[DickyD]

Bet you would have said the same about Volkswagen cars or Honda motorcycles.

[tigertiger]

Companies like Futaba are like Sony. They will continue to innovate as well as offering top quality, this will allow them to always charge a premium price.

There will always be both the hi end and budget markets. And part of the hi end market is the top servos and other accessories that drive the brands.

I don't see world champs in sailing, or people flying £1000s worth of gear, trading down to the budget market radios real soon.

[Circlip]

Don't be an old fuddy duddy Vintage, S*d sound business sense, Cheap, Cheap Cheap!

  "Hey look what I just got"   

  Regards  Ian.

[Vintage]

Bet you would have said the same about Volkswagen cars or Honda motorcycles.

Too young to remember the days of cheap VW or Honda products (or to be an "old fuddy duddy"  ) so can't possibly comment  Can we look forward to premium products in the future & a "Giant Cod" service centre in every major UK town....?? 

Just seems strange to me that people spend more on putting a tank full of fuel in their car than they're prepared to pay for a piece of equipment that should provide years of enjoyment controlling their favorite, lovingly constructed models. From my experience the cheap sets feel just that - cheap & tacky plastic as opposed to the tactile, quality feel of established manufacturers.

There will always be both the hi end and budget markets. And part of the hi end market is the top servos and other accessories that drive the brands

Lets hope so 

I'll stick with my hi end Futaba gear thank you   

[oldernovice]

Had a phone call from Howes this morning advising that they had not rec'd their shipment of radios that were shown at the show,but had a replacement model the Planet 5.
Those of you who have had the back off, are the centring bits swappable between horizontal and vertical axis channels , as I wish to make both sticks self centring in the vertical axis to run twin motors, and am happy to leave the left horizontal stick non centring as for the moment it will not be used.

Jim.

[DickyD]

Well Mr Vintage [or should that be young vintage] you should feel very privileged to have a local hobby shop, my nearest is approx 90 minutes away and being disabled its not very convenient.
Also being disabled and having to rely on wife's income for everything, your top of the range Futaba 2.4 stuff is way out of my price range.
I do all my boat shopping on the internet, though I do use shops for it where possible as Barry at Westbournes and Malcolm at Cornwall Model Boats will testify.
All my 40AM stuff is Futaba if that makes you feel any better, 4Txs and 14Rxs. Probably helped to pay for the development costs on your 2.4 Futaba stuff.

[Vintage]

you should feel very privileged to have a local hobby shop

Richard

My local model shop isn't actually very good although, I concede, that I'm fortunate to have a local model shop at all & that really was my point, those traditional type model shops that struggle on aren't helped by the mass import of cheap, poor quality (based upon comments made by on this site) goods flooding onto the market. It isn't sustainable in my view & my initial post merely expressed that.

your top of the range Futaba 2.4 stuff is way out of my price range.

I don't actually have any 2.4 Futaba gear - all my sets are pre. 2.4 &, being consistently reliable, I have no need to replace them.

Good to hear that you use Futaba yourself 

Mark.

[dodgy geezer]

Am I the only one concerned to see a company flooding the market with cheap radio gear??

At £35- for a 5 channel set something's wrong - it's completely unsustainable to expect a company to produce, ship around the world & then allow a retailer to add a fair markup on such a product. Quality / service has to suffer & I can't help thinking it'll be another nail in the coffin of the traditional model shop.

Quality is as quality does, as my old granny used to say. What she meant I have no idea, and I suspect she hadn't, either!

We have several issues here. One is that globalisation means that all products, not just model kit, are often able to be made and shipped half-way round the world cheaper than they can be made locally. Combine that with the rise of Internet ordering, and we could be watching the traditional high street collapse, rather than just the model shops. In our lifetimes we have already seen the disappearance of the traditional butchers/grocers/fishmongers/fruitshop from many towns. I suspect that specialist providers like model shops will hang in longer than many others.

The other issue is that cheap mass production is catching up with our hobby. Radio control was always a bit of an unusual pastime, and we paid through the nose for our specialist electronics back in the 1960s and 1970s. Now we have 'park flyers' demanding volume ready-made kit, and, crucially, a huge expansion in wireless computing. That means the development of transmitter electronics on the 2.4Ghz band which cost pennies.

These cheap sets use hardware developed from the park flyer toys, and radio circuitry from wireless computing. They are simple, no frills, cheap trim sets, but the fundamental design seems ok. I suspect the build quality control is going to be low, but modelers can often rectify that themselves. And if they break after three years use, throw them away and get a new one. Just like modern car parts, or TVs, it has become uneconomic to refettle individual items. We are seeing the definition of quality/service for consumer goods change as well...

[jabba]

Alot of people at kirklees use the planet radio.
its a very good set with no glitching,easy to bind and the range is good.
you can buy from leeds model shop,for around £40.00,if i did'nt have a dx7 i would buy instantly.
its as cheap as a xtal radio.
also a friend dropped the planet transmitter in the lake,it still works perfect.
 hope this helps.
  jabba.

[Zed.]

Hello gents,

 I have just bought one of the T5 sets (untried as yet, batteries on charge, will do a range test as I have not completed the model yet )

a question maybe for the electronics guru's amongst us

as the rx aerial is short and on a boat this might be hidden from view, is it possible to lengthen it?

I have opened the plastic 'wrap' rx case and looking at the pcb the soldering of the aerial wire seems to be just a single attachment making me think that the wire is not a co-ax but single

I have read that the aerial's length is specific on 2.4g sets but wonder about 'remote' aerial positoning maybe

my reasoning behind this is that I am building a surface runner type 7c u boat (based on the revell plastic kit) and fancy 2.4g radio but would like the rx & aerial high enough to garantee good signal strength as it has not much superstructure hight over water level

if it is not going to work then I will get another (40mhz?) set for the u boat and use the 2.4g set on the flower corvette I am also building

Rich.

[FullLeatherJacket]

as the rx aerial is short and on a boat this might be hidden from view, is it possible to lengthen it?

Don't tamper with it or try to alter it in any way.
This is a microwave device and not VHF like your 40 meg sets. If you have any doubts then fit an AM or FM radio.
FLJ

[dodgy geezer]

Hello gents,

as the rx aerial is short and on a boat this might be hidden from view, is it possible to lengthen it?

I have read that the aerial's length is specific on 2.4g sets but wonder about 'remote' aerial positoning maybe

All aerial lengths are carefully tuned at the factory. Any fiddling will make them worse. I suspect that, because a 2.4Ghz aerial is so short, in percentage terms you will cause more trouble altering that than a 27Mhz one, certainly you will reduce the range more than any positioning could enhance it.

There have been many comments about 2.4Ghz being shielded by water, but I know of no reports where this was definitely shown to be an issue.

2.4Ghz propagation is odd. The radio waves can get through very narrow cracks and gaps - much better than down in the Mhz range, but they are prone to shadow effects, reflections and other problems which can cause sudden failures of reception. This is recognised by the big players, who produce radios with twin aerial front-ends to give redundancy - you place one aerial at right-angles to another...
On the Giant Cod website is a little circuit for multiplexing two radio receivers together to attain the same effect - aircraft might like this but I don't think any boats will need it...

[Zed.]

mmmmm, interesting

thanks guys, was just an idle wondering (well, more along the lines of 'remote positoning' the aerial )

always good to have ideas & others thoughts

might try to fit the rx into the u boats 'tower'

Rich.

[DickyD]

Tried out my Giant Cod radio today. Dead easy to set up and bind, even for me.

Works absolutely fine on my single screw boats but could not get the trim right on the ones with a P94 in.

So my Futaba for the complicated set ups and Giant Cod for the simple set ups.

[craftysod]

Glad you got it working Dicky
As i said with the GC radio,its a matter of putting the right connection into the rx,and maybe reversing the tx
to get right direction
Mark
Dont do mixers, thats in the kitchen

[DickyD]

It was easy Mark, 1, 3 and 7 as you said. Had to reverse speed servo.

Got it to bind straight away. 

[john j]

Am I the only one concerned to see a company flooding the market with cheap radio gear??

I share the same concerns.

At that money quality must suffer, are they even legal in this country- do they have the CE badge ?

[DickyD]

Mine has a CE badge John. They are fine for a straight forward set up.

[john j]

Mine has a CE badge John. They are fine for a straight forward set up.

It is definetly reasuring that they come with the CE badge, i dont think they hand them out lightly.

I`ve just spent the guts of £1800.00 on a JR 12x radio, so either were getting stiffed by the 'big two' (futaba and JR) or the chineese sets are poor quality. I think only time will tell.

I`ll definetly be keen to see how these sets hold up long term.

[craftysod]

£1800 on a radio my missus would kill me,where do you think futuba come from,china.
These cheap radio sets might not last long,throw away,get another

[john j]

£1800 on a radio my missus would kill me,where do you think futuba come from,china.
These cheap radio sets might not last long,throw away,get another

She bought me the last one nine years ago, i think it was around £900. she spends more than that on make-up a month 

I understand what your saying about throwing it away and getting another one when it`s surface vehicel`s, but when you have a model jet in the air costing 3,4,5000 quid could you really take the chance ?

I know it`s a high price to pay, but it`s piece of mind i`m afraid

[craftysod]

I can see where your coming from John,where the model costs that much,i would not take risks either

[dodgy geezer]

..when you have a model jet in the air costing 3,4,5000 quid could you really take the chance ?

I don't think anyone's recommending these sets for high performance or safety critical applications. While they seem to be solidly made and adequately designed, they are obviously built to a price. That probably shows up in the component quality and the build quality, which is likely to be variable. I have had one where the internal wire solder joints on the stick pots were hanging by a thread - easily mended, and probably built by a trainee. So I would suggest checking them before use - but so long as they are used with an eye to their limitations they will probably perform as well as a more expensive set.... 

[john j]

I don't think anyone's recommending these sets for high performance or safety critical applications. While they seem to be solidly made and adequately designed, they are obviously built to a price. That probably shows up in the component quality and the build quality, which is likely to be variable. I have had one where the internal wire solder joints on the stick pots were hanging by a thread - easily mended, and probably built by a trainee. So I would suggest checking them before use - but so long as they are used with an eye to their limitations they will probably perform as well as a more expensive set.... 

I totally agree, up untill a few days ago i didn`t even know these sets existed and as you say their probably more than upto the job for everything apart from the elaborate stuff (purely a precaution) my biggest concern was, if they were legal in the UK, but as DD says his came with a CE sticker.

I think i`m just stunned by how cheap these sets are, bearing in mind this is up to the minute technology. How long have these sets been available ? is it long enough to know if they are reliable, has there been many returns, if any.

We tend to think, no matter what we are buying whether it be a TV, washing machine or that type of thing, that the more expencive one is going to be the better quality.

If these chineese sets do turn out to be good then the likes of futaba and JR are gonna be in bother !

                                                  cheers
                                                        john

[andygh]

I've had my Turborix 6ch since February, no problems with it at all. I now have the 3ch and the 9ch from the same company