Am radio ok?

[budd]

Iam going to try Rc sailboats.And I cant chose between Avenger 75mhz AM or vg-4 4 channel 75 mhz fm.Is there any real need for fm, does am work well?Avenger is only $61 with nicds vs $120 for the vg4 fm.Iam only a airtronics or multiplex guy .

[DrElectron]

Budd...

It should not matter for 75 Mhz use, FM or AM... I use AM in our sailboat and it has worked out just fine... I used AM in aircraft for a long time and had no problems but now strictly FM for the planes as that is about all that is available anymore...

For the sailboat, I prefer a two stick two channel radio using the left stick for the sail winch and the right stick for the rudder... I have set them both up to be ratcheted so you can set your controls and not have to fight a spring to keep them from going back to center...

Most important is to get good quality servos with adequate torque and rotation to do the two jobs... I am using an older Airtronics sail winch that is quite stout and a standard full sized servo to do the rudder chores... I have attached a picture of our installation... The 1200 mAh nicad is slung beneath the sailwinch to keep its weight as low as possible...

Hope this is of some help... Enjoy your boat and radio whichever you decide to get...

Bruce... :cool:

[andyzib]

When I built my sailboat, I picked up a Futaba Attack 2channel FM system. The draw of this system is that it's possible to change your crystal sets. If you find yourself in a crowded boat club or attent AMYA race events, it's not a bad idea to have alternate channels you can operate on. At the time, I think the raido with Sail Winch Server and 1 normal (rudder) server was around $75. No recharagable batteries to add to your cost. I've had one set of batteries last all season, but I didn't get to sail that much that season. Normal usage I'd say is 2-4 battery changes, assuming a Minnesota winter is there to stop you from sailing. :)

I just pulled my radio out of 4 years of storage and the batteries still have near full charge. Too bad my boat didn't survive the storage as well as the transmitter did...

Did I ever buy an altranate crystal set? Nope. :D

Futaba doesn't make my tranmitter anymore, but it looks like their current crystals would still work.