On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 04:18:19PM -0500, James V. Bacus wrote: | I agree with most of your post but this would be a bad idea exposing the | knobs on the tx module. One should have to remove it to change the | freq. The last thing you would want to give to any evil-doers is the | capability to leave the TX on and then just twist away at the knobs | changing channels.
So make it require a power cycle before the change actually takes effect. Of course, then the danger is that what they display will not match what it's transmitting on. The current setup of the Hitec Spectra (yes, I do have one -- I got tired of waiting for Futaba, so I bought Al's Eclipse/Spectra) is such that it's not likely to last terribly long -- every time I pop it out and put it back, there's a small chance that I'm going to bend the pins on the radio, or break the clips that you use to pull the module out (I've already done that on one other module.) Or just simply drop it -- I've certainly done that enough times. It may be safer for planes in the air, but it's harder on the radio itself. And those little adjustment things (not sure what they're called) aren't really designed to be changed over and over anyways. They'll wear out soon enough if you change your frequency a lot. Really, the knobs should go away completely eventually. The frequency should be controlled by the radio software itself. Sounds like the Polk Tracker does it right, and probably the Evo too. Not sure about the 9Z or 14Z -- never used one. But as it exists today, the Spectra Module does it wrong. There is _no_ visible way to tell what channel the transmitter is on without removing the module. And removing the module is enough of a pain in the ass that people may not want to do that quite as often as they should. The new synthesized module for the 9C (yes, apparantly it IS out, finally, though it's a bit scarce still) has the knobs on the back, where it apparantly can be changed without removing it. Check the picture -- http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHKB1&P=ML I feel that this is safer overall than the current Hitec Spectra module design. (Unless I have an old model, and the new model looks more like that, that is.) And it should last longer too. As for true evil doers, you're not giving them anything. If they're really looking to do evil, merely moving some knobs isn't going to stop them. | >2) move them where they can be | >seen/changed without removing the module from the radio, -- Doug McLaren, [EMAIL PROTECTED] If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. --George Winters 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
