Many of you have already received this information by being on my last IMSF member list, or by being subscribed to the IMSF Yahoo! group. For anyone else not on those lists, please read:

April 17, Tuesday
Salt Lake County Complex on 2100 South
North building, room 3005
7pm

Most of the time at our April meeting will be spent in small groups talking about computer radios. I did not get a lot of replies to my request for the type of computer radio you own (if you do own one), but have had several members say that they would be happy to help others on particular brands/models: i.e., Hitec Aurora 9, JR 9303, Airtronics SD-10g. If you are comfortable with another computer radio, please bring it and an airplane and share your knowledge with us. For instance, I have no one assigned right now to talk about Futaba.

EVERYONE, please bring any computer radio you have and an airplane it is installed in so we can have better discussions about this topic. Or just bring the transmitter (fully charged!) and play around with it. Hopefully we can all learn something new from working together.

I am planning on small, informal groups centered on each radio make/model. If there is interest, we can also have short presentations on the best attributes of each radio (price, programming, etc).

Scott Hinckley

Todays meeting was fun it was nice to see everyone and i learned so much. Tom Hoopes is a wealth of knowledge and covers so much info in such a short time.it was fun to hear him speak esp. on a subject i know so little about. thanks to all bobby

IMSF Minutes, 4-17-12
13 in attendance

Secretary – financial, memberships, discussion of purchasing yearly AMA insurance for Kearns, and whether we could pay once and cover multiple county parks (AMA has since said that we can; insurance will be purchased)

F3F race on April 28, CD is Spencer Deputy: 9-9:30am; watch the web sites; if enough people show up with other than unlimited planes (say 60” class) we could look at separate scoring classes; if you want MOM (Man-on-Man racing) then let Spencer or Ted know that—we need enough actual participants to make it worth while
ALES contest on May 5, CD is Mike Crane; more info as we get closer

Computer radios
Tom Hoopes gave an overview of 72MHz vs. 2.4GHz, then talked about the general setup process for any radio
72MHz
Much longer range
Frequency control required
More forgiving of fuselage materials and objects between you and plane

2.4GHz (hopefully I got most of this right and it is not too simplified)
No frequency control needed; more flyers at same time
Signal more easily blocked/absorbed by carbon fuselages, any line of sight objects, even your body
FHSS, Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (Hitec, Airtronics, Futaba) vs. DSSS, Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (others), both have pluses & minuses dependent on software implementation, but the FHSS systems appear to be superior as the number of participants at an event increases

Setup
Get the mechanical linkages set as close as possible first with servos and transmitter all set to center; not “I’ll just do it in the transmitter”
Get the surfaces working right before mixing and subtrim/endpoint adjustments
Only adjust the transmitter to do what you want; much harder to turn all the options on, use all the “neat-o” capabilities, if you can’t remember what each switch does and/or get confused when flying

Except for the Airtronics SD10, there really weren’t enough people in any group to divide up, so it was an informal sharing of what radios could do what; for the price and features the Hitec Aurora 9 came out on top; the Airtronics SD-10g was right up there; some other manufacturers need to keep implementing new features/technologies (as Specktrum with DSMX), especially ease of programming. Many manufacturers now have radios which allow any control to be put on any transmitter stick or switch.

There were good comments, most in attendance got involved, and people took turns talking. It was a pleasant meeting with a lot to think about.

Next meeting: each person talks about their first, or earlier gliders, photos if available, etc. Wid will start it out with a little history of pre-RC model gliders.
I will put out a request for information next week

Scott Hinckley