So that we could write our Datchet radio sailing manuals for all the Transmitter Brands, I went ahead and sorted out trying them all.

In asking around, you get positive and negative opinions (passionate usually!) about all of them. When asking around about experience with Spektrum, more than once I was told that the kit had to be abandoned due to boats falling out of range. This was naturally accompanied by the views of others saying “used them for years, never had a single problem”…. (more passion!)

Of course, a boat can drop signal for all sorts of reasons – transmitter, receiver, carbon fibre, battery etc, but when your much respected friends say they had a problem you pay attention, don’t you? It might be the transmitter, it might not.

So I went ahead and bought a new Spektrum DX8e (on special offer, I might add!!). Before even hooking it up, I managed to break the thing – entirely my fault, by the way. So RW took it off to see the Spektrum doctor for me.

What was interesting was that RWs Model Shop (AL’s Hobbies) knew straight away after repair to give it a range check. I’m thinking they knew what to look for. They promptly sent it back to the distributor. It only took a couple of days to turn around.

The diagnosis was a faulty battery connector which had to be replaced. It was all so quick I’m thinking they had seen all this before a few times – a big batch problem maybe.

Anyway, if you have set aside your Spektrum after losing contact, it may all be to do with a suspect battery connector. You might want to get that looked at.

I’m grateful to Gary at AL’s Hobbies for sorting mine out 🙂