Focus on Competition
Technical Update
Steve Kaluf Technical Director [email protected]
THE YEAR 2007 is shaping up to be interesting for spread-spectrum systems. I’m looking for a couple of new systems to be introduced during the course of the year. Some manufacturers have purposely leaked information; others have been using the Internet to great advantage to do some prerelease publicity about upcoming systems.
AMA continues to work with the manufacturers in advance of the release of new spread-spectrum systems. All the companies we have contacted have agreed to allow AMA to see their system prereleases. That allows us to conduct testing on the units to make sure they and the other spread-spectrum systems work together well and to learn about the systems, enabling us to educate the AMA membership. Feel free to call or write to me if you have not seen us mention a new spread-spectrum system that has been released. It’s possible that the system was released before we had time to get any information out or perhaps the manufacturer did not send us a unit to evaluate.
I have been getting calls from clubs over the last 18 months or so asking how to handle spread-spectrum systems at the club site or at events. I’ve mentioned AMA’s position on this question a couple of times in other columns and in the articles I’ve written or co-authored. However, this is important information so I will repeat it.
The short answer to this question is that you do not have to do anything. These systems will not interfere with anyone and they won’t interfere with themselves.
However, that is not the only answer we give. AMA does recommend that clubs establish pins or card slots (or whatever you use to control frequencies at your site) for spread-spectrum systems. This is not for frequency control, though; it is for flightline control and to ensure that those who fly spread-spectrum systems don’t get out of the habit of using frequency control in case they go back to flying on a frequency band that requires frequency control.
Clubs need to be diligent about policing their sites for park-size radio systems that are being flown in larger glow- or gas-powered models. Traditional range tests may show the system to have adequate range for larger models, when in fact the system does not have the ability to operate these larger models at longer ranges. Please be careful about this; don’t let a member tell you he or she has test-flown the model to 5,000 feet and there is no problem. The fact is that it could eventually cause a problem, which we need to avoid.
I continue to further my education with respect to the care and feeding of Li-Poly battery packs and electric-model knowledge in general. We’ve been doing some charger testing, mostly looking for the safest methods to charge packs. Most of these chargers have a brain the Apollo astronauts would have killed for. Some, as smart as they are, can still be fooled into going into the wrong charge mode for the pack attached to them. Remember that you must verify everything before starting the charge cycle. And please, never charge a lithium pack unattended.
Til next time... MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
