DID TEURS

Peter Carr W B3BQO
329 Lirlle A venue
Rid1?wa y PA 15851
In the Stack
- RICers, don't be grounded by control channel
congestion! Put your ship on six!
I
•
r
<
I
....~l
, ,
>
" , 1
'1 •
! '
,
I
Photo A. Transmitter case open with encoder board at bottom
and bartery-cha rging jack at right. Four penfight cells of
the ffight pack are at left, with the decoder at center and receiver
at right. fight-cell trensmittet pack at upper left is
held to the rear panel of the case with silicone rubber.
Switches at the top of the uensmiuer case are sixth- and
seventh-channel controls. They are lor dropping bombs or
parachutes, operating retractable landing gear, or anything
that does not need to be pro portionally controlled.
S6 73 Magazine · April, 1981
T
he
m odel airpl ane
contest is under way.
Over a hundred pilots and
their planes are gathered in
the open meadow. At the
p ilots' briefing, your radio
control frequency is announced
as being the most
crowded. Th is means that
in stead of select ing the
time to fly when conditions
are best, you must wait to
be called to the flight l ine
to fly . Only one RIC rig ca n
be in ope ration at one time,
or the resulting in terfer ence
will cause the model to
crash.
W ith ten or more pilots
on the same frequency as
you, the rotation of the
roster means a long wait
between fl ights, and being
hurried when your name is
ca lled . The add itional pressure
of being on a crowded
frequency on top of the
usua l " f irst flight nerve s " is
unsettling and w ill not help
you r scores. There ought to
be a better w ay !
For ham s, there is a better
wa y . While there are only
seve n channels for RIC
o peration in the 72-M HI
band for no n-hams, there
are fi ve chann el s from
50.100 to 50.500 MHz in the
six-meter band. While these
are not exclusively for RIC
c perauon. th e ARRL and
most ham gro ups througho
ut the world have agreed
to reserve them for rad iocontro
l purposes. At a typical
contest, there m ay be
fo ur or five ham s fly ing, so
the cr ow d ing on any pa rticular
frequency w ill be very
light. Now, in stead of having
to wait to be ca lled up
to fly, you can pick the best
time and choose the fight
conditions, not being bound
by the frequency roster.
W hile there are several
factory-built radios on the
six-meter band, most hams
prefer to put together a kit.
The best known of these is
from Heathkit!', and this
bran d is always well represented
at the f lying field.