I don't want to pile on more bad topics, but I have just experienced two crashes due to lockouts of my Receivers. Here is the backstory...
Saturday, I flew my Sig 4star with the FrSky 8 ch receiver that I have had in it for a while. It worked great and I never had a problem. I range checked this about a month ago and do not range check them again. I then took up my second plane, a biplane and did not range check it prior to flying. I had range checked it about two weeks prior. The day I range checked it, I did have some issues with it, but i thought that it was just the "new" plane feeling and the fact that it was a bipe and I was not used to it. It seemed to not respond well in a certain part of the field as I approached landing. Well, shortly after taking off, I started losing control of the biplane. It was slow to respond and eventually it barrelled in to the forest (I am going to try to recover it tomorrow). I then remembered the problems I had been having with it.
The second plane that went in was yesterday. It was a small ducted fan jet that I had successfully flown about three weeks ago. I did not range check it, but it responded fine at most ranges with the 4 channel receiver. I recovered that and have the receiver in my posession. Tomorrow, when I retrieve the biplane, i plan on trying to range check a few of my receivers, those that gave me problems, and those that worked fine (I will pull out the 4star Rx and try it too.
Before both planes went in, I replace the case that came with the Tx module with the new one. In order to get the antenna into the hole in the back of the case, the small coaxial cable needed to be bent pretty sharply to make the corner. Do you think this might have caused a problem? Are there any recommendations for doing the range check, or anything to check with the Rx's?
Thanks,
Curtis