RC Model Reviews

Hi,
I want to buy a new transmitter and I though the hitec aurora and the futaba f8tg are good radio's. Both have the same price. The only thing i doubt is the quality of the system hitec is using.
So what is a better system, Hitec afhss or Futaba fasst? I think my choise is about with system is better. because i like hitec's telemetrie.

Thanks

Your timing is good!

I have a Hitec Aurora 9 here and I'm trying hard to get a Futaba 8FG (as well as a Spektrum DX8 when they're launched, a JR11X and an Airtronics SD10G -- so as to do a comprehensive side-by-side comparison and test.

It's good to see that Hitec have enough confidence in their product to submit one for the review process and, although I haven't had a chance to take a good look at it yet, I must admit it's very impressive in a number of areas.

I've emailed Hobbico and Horizon to see if they'll match Hitec's kind offer of submitting a review sample of their products but so far -- deathly silence.

You might want to drop Hobbico an email and suggest that they consider providing a review radio since, like yourself, there are quite a number of people considering buying radios in this 8-11 channel segment of the market and they all want to know which radio will be best (for them).

Another cool thing is that, if they provide a unit for review and don't want it returned, it'll go into the RCModelReviews.com prize pool and you (or someone else) could win it

I'm curious how the hitec aurora come out of the test. I think i will wait for a moment to look at your review. It is cool if you could get a futaba 8FG. But Spektrum's dsm2 isn't as good as futaba fasst? I've seen your review about spektrum's dsm2.

Yes, of all the currently produced 2.4GHz systems, DSM2 is probably about the worst.

That's probably because it's also the oldest and Spektrum have refused to update it to reflect the fact that the 2.4GHz band is now a lot more hostile than it was when DSM2 was first introduced. The number of folks experiencing "unexplained lockouts" with DSM2 seems to be increasing at a rate which is disproportionate to the number of systems in use.

I'd really hoped they'd take the opportunity to introduce either full-time hopping or at least go to three-frequency operation when the DX8 was released. It seems they're more interested in designing flashy new transmitters and offering telemetry than beefing up the integrity of the underlying RF link. That's a shame really.

when you use the hitec system in normal mode, will it have some problems when there is some signals over the hitec signal? I understand that, in normal mode, it won't change the channel.

Yes, in normal mode it simply uses what ever channels were chosen during the last "scan" (in scan-mode).

If you notice any latency or unusual behavior you can do a new scan which will cause the system to "adapt" to the noise that's on the band at that time. Unfortunately, it also means you'll have to rebind your receiver.

After doing the scan it pays to go back to "normal" mode so as to ensure fastest relink in the event of problems.

Hi Bruce, do you have any comments about the Sanwa (Airtronics) SD10G TX/RX system. There was talk of a shoot out.

Low Price RC Limited in HK have a great deal going on the SD10G, I'm about to flash the card and ditch DSM2, just too many unexplained things happening at the park right now.

Last weekend we saw the top 1/3 of the 2.4GHz band knocked out (-20 to -25db) for about 30min and it was not us. Interesting thing a guy had a HK RTF manual radio (FHSS) that was blasting out at 2x what a DX8 was doing, does not look like 100mW is being maintained by some of the odd balls. We were using an iPhone receiver/app.