Futaba 2.4Ghz equipment
 

BMFA Technical committee position. March 2008.

At Saturday's Tech Council we received some updates on the Futaba situation, and this is a distillation of the essential details. This is of particular importance if you are planning an event in the near future, so please draw this to the attention of event organisers!

All the UK 7C sets have now had their software upgraded, and are now immune from the "zero-id" bug. Modified sets will have a RipMax sticker that includes a bar-code on the bottom. If it has the sticker, it should be OK. If it hasn't, it is almost certainly a grey import and potentially a "zero-id" candidate. Treat with great suspicion!

6EX sets and TM-7 modules (but NOT TM-14s) can still become zeroed even after they have been tested if they are mis-handled. Tested sets are being issued with a warning sticker and instruction sheet, but of course this still doesn't guarantee the set won't get zeroed!

However, a 6EX can ONLY affect another 6EX, and similarly a TM-7 can ONLY affect another TM-7. Both sets have to be faulty for interaction to occur.

Therefore, if you are planning an event in the near future, the advice is to treat all 6EXs as if they were on the same frequency - only one out at a time! Similarly, only one TM-7 should be allowed out at a time.

The Futabas cannot affect other 2.4 GHz equipment, only identical models of Futaba.

By restricting flying at events to only one 6EX and one TM-7 at a time, it should be possible to allow the use of these sets safely.

RipMax are planning to start a software upgrade program that should completely solve the problem in the near future, but obviously that will take some time to implement. In the meantime, if you stick to the above guidelines, it should be possible to allow the use of the affected sets at events without problems.

If anyone has any further questions, I'll be happy to answer them if I can, but RipMax should have more detailed information!

I have also mentioned the issue of the slow switch-over when buddy-boxing, and they are going to investigate this.

On the JR front, I believe MacGregors now have a single pre-production sample of the DSX-9 (2.4 GHx PCM-9). However, at the time of writing, there are NO EU approved JR 2.4 GHz radios available anywhere in the world, despite what some shops in the far east are advertising! X9303s (US version of the PCM-9) are not, and probably never will be, EU approved!

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Pete Christy (RCPT Chair)