Category Archives: Radio Equipment

Radio Receiver Chatter – Interesting Short Video….!

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I saw in the Club WhatsApp group some exchanges about transmitters and receivers. In particular, Craig and Rohan were very keen on a receiver unit called the AR620 from Spektrum.

This little video came up when I googled it. It’s just a few minutes long. It’s an interview with the Technical Director of Spektrum. It is pretty interesting to hear what the product designers think is important. Of course, it’s 100% about planes and rc cars, but nonetheless I was intrigued to hear his comments about:-

  • No antenna – integrated aerial by Texas Instruments and it actually performs better than dangly wire aerials
  • Binding to the transmitter via a button, and two methods
  • FlyBy telemetry for reading onboard battery capacity, and “flyby” means it only works to a range of 600-800 feet
  • A very intriguing set of remarks about mounting the receiver 2-3 inches away from carbon fibre in the plane fuselage as the carbon blocks the signal. Given the amount of carbon fibre in our Marbleheads, it’s worth reflecting over. Note that Craig and Rohan didn’t make any comments about this being a problem. A small (not thorough) piece of research from me said that Kevlar does let radio signals in. Interesting.
  • Quite a large amount of chat about two failsafe modes, “PreSet” and “SmartSafe” and the “Hold Last Command”. In radio sailing that part of worth listening to a couple of times.

Transmitters for Beginners 2 – Are We “Air” or “Surface”? (Trick Question)

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So maybe you’ve just bought your first boat only to find you need to separately find yourself a transmitter? Or you just will get a new one?

The first thing you find when you google it, is that there are lots out there. On many occasions, you’ll land on a website only to discover that the seller splits the transmitters into “Air” or “Surface”. …. Baffling.

Before the modern wave of 2.4ghz radios it seems that it was thought better to help prevent signals on radio control race cars accidentally being picked up by a radio controlled plane overhead – and crashing them to the ground. So it was prudent to split frequencies – or at least I think that was the idea. To this day, you will see that MYA Entry Forms still ask for wavelength, a legacy of those days I guess – and we all fill in “2.4ghz”. Our radios all pair precisely to the receivers in our boats – no problems.

A manufacturer legacy of those days is still to classify their transmitters as either Air or Surface. You see that on seller websites a lot. Now before you immediately go and look at “Surface transmitters” as we sail on the surface…. Stop!! You want to look at “Air Transmitters”. We use airplane type transmitters for sailing.

It looks like “Surface” designs now tend to be pistol grips (rc cars?) and “Air” designs have the twin joysticks that radio sailors use.

So : You want to look for “Air” and “Mode 2”, the latter being about the way the joysticks are arranged. Mode 2 is rudder on the right. That’s what we use.

You might also come across the term “Open TX”. For now, just ignore this. This is the transmitter manufacturer equivalent of linux in the home computer world – free shared industry software for driving the transmitter as opposed to manufacturer proprietary software. There are pluses and minuses – and you’ll be wondering about those as you read. It should in theory make it all cheaper in the long run. At the present, Radiomaster, FrSky, Jumper and one or two others have adopted OpenTX.

http://www.open-tx.org/radios

Preferred Transmitter Types ….!!

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We had a super flare-up on our WhatsApp Group this week about radio transmitters! There’s real passion out there !!

Reasonable reactions …. as for all of us, the transmitter is your primary interface to the boat. We all have different size hands, different feeling at the fingertips etc etc. It’s good that people have strong views!! Don’t mention purchase price to a group of radio sailors, or you’ll never get away. (!)

It’s clear from our WhatsApp chatter that every transmitter brand has both war stories and accolades in good numbers. For beginners, I’d say the stories (good and bad) just make choosing your first transmitter much harder to work out. Oddly there’s almost no way to compare how the various models feel in one’s own hands – big/small/balanced etc.

As a result of all the messages I posted the little poll above – half the members replied in about three hours, so we have touched a nerve!! Interesting result above, actually….

I’m thinking we might run a “Transmitters for Beginners” section here on the website, as understanding all of this area is a significant barrier-to-entry for newcomers. Very daunting,… speaking for myself anyway. It need not be, if we can demystify it. If you buy a second hand boat as your entry to radio sailing there’s a high chance that it comes without a radio. So the beginner hits this wall straight away.

There is limited help on YouTube for radio sailing beginners (excepting FlySky to a degree) and they all have dreadful User Manuals… or no manuals at all to speak of.

The radios are all built for the market as a whole. The market for transmitters is dominated by planes, cars, drones, gliders and the like. At MYA we have a little over 2,000 members… you’d think that was a lot. Do you know how many drones are licensed in UK as at 2023?? 513,000…. Mind boggling. Furthermore, the needs of planes, drones etc means that the transmitters are way over configured for what we need. Radio sailing needs only a tiny amount of the functionality that the transmitters deliver.

So, if we are going to get the help and manuals for beginners sorted out, it will have to be radio sailors that do it.

The Commodore and I have an idea……