Technical Update - 2007/07

Focus on Competition
Technical Update
Steve Kaluf
Technical Director
[email protected]
I PROMISED TO bring you an update on
the Electronic Technology Committee
(ETC) meeting that took place in April. I’m
going to share with you some (not all) of the
items we covered.
The mission of this important committee
is: To support the Academy by monitoring,
maintaining and developing electronic
technology areas of modeling through
liaison with government, industry and
membership groups.
Our first topic was a combined subject
with the AMA Safety Committee on Lithium
technology battery safety education. Our
goal was to develop a method to best
educate the AMA membership on this topic.
We decided the best way to do this is via
a video. It will be produced and made
available in DVD format. Web distribution
will also be utilized by agreements with
various groups. Younger, recognized people
will be used as the cast in the video. The
intention is to keep it entertaining while
delivering the message that must be gotten
across.
Topics will include (but not be limited
to):
• Charging
• Use of balance/node connectors
• Soldering techniques
• Failure damage mitigation
• Safe handling of failed packs
• Degrees of failure
• Storage
A group was established to work on this
important project.
A new form will be developed that will
collect specific battery/charger incident
information. This data will be tabulated by
the AMA Technical Department. We will
request that the form be placed on various
Web sites. Additionally, the information will
be shared between USA, Canada, Australia,
and any other country that will participate.
Futaba and Spektrum presented
miniseminars on where their respective
companies are with the development of
spread spectrum radio products. Both
seminars were very well done and provided
good information to the ETC.
I went over the testing that has been done
at AMA HQ on spread spectrum systems. I
mentioned the systems we have tested in my
last column.
We decided to list the usable 900 MHz
band in the AMA Membership Manual since
there is some equipment available in this
band.
Seven UHF channels are being phased
out from discrete TV channels.
Opportunities may exist for DSS RC in this
band. AMA’s attorney will be asked to look
at possibilities within this band.
Dan Williams updated the ETC on BPL
(broadband over powerlines). Currently BPL
operators only have to reduce limits below
Federal Communications Commissionpermissible
limits by 10 dB above 30 MHz,
and even is this is not enough to resolve
interference complaints. The American
Radio Relay League has filed lawsuits over
this issue.
The Emergency Amateur Radio
Interference Protection Act of 2007 calls for
a comprehensive BPL service study to lead
to improved rules to prevent this form of
interference to mobile communications.
Testing will be conducted using a 35 MHz
RC system in New York as soon as that
particular BPL system goes active.
That’s about it for now. We did address a
few other issues, and I’ll probably bring
those up next month.
Til next time ... MA
National Record
Updates
Indoor AMA Ceiling Category II
HL Glider (212)
Op. Jim Buxton
01:55.6 03/31/07
Control Line A Speed (302)
Op. Jerry Rocha
186.47 04/01/07
May 2007
AMA Academy of Model
Aeronautics
ARF Almost Ready to Fly
BEC Battery Eliminator Circuit
CAD computer-aided design
cc cubic centimeter
CD contest director or
compact disc
CG center of gravity
CL Control Line
cm centimeter
cu. in. cubic inch
DT dethermalizer
EPP (foam) expanded polypropylene
ESC Electronic Speed Control
FAI Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale
FCC Federal Communications
Commission
FF Free Flight
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LE leading edge
LED light-emitting diode
Li-Poly Lithium Polymer
mA milliamperes
MA Model Aviation
mAh milliampere-hours
MHz megahertz
mm millimeter
Nats AMA Nationals
Ni-Cd Nickel Cadmium
NiMH Nickel Metal Hydride
RC Radio Control
rpm revolutions per minute
RTF Ready to Fly
SASE self-addressed, stamped
envelope
SIG Special Interest Group
TE trailing edge
ModelAviation’s
Frequently Used Abbreviations/Acronyms
July 2007 189
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