KXH121

My Feedback: (20)

Does anyone know where to locate a frequency monitor for checking R/C channels for interference? I know BVM use to sell one a couple of years ago and I think the name of the company/product was "Magellan". I am interested in purchasing one by the way. Thanks in advance. Ken H

aparchment

Actually I thing he sold the ICOM A2 which is just a general aviation receiver/scanner.

Another big brand is Yaesu.

FYI there are several guys on the RC Jets list who came up with programs that allowed ICOM products to scan just the RC channels.

These receivers/scanners are sold at AvShop (www.avshop.com) and Sporty's Pilot Shop (www.sportys.com) among others for between $200 and $300.

Hope that's helpful.

Antony

Dustflyer

My Feedback: (13)

Go to www.magtechinc.net. I've got one of the scanners and it works well for detecting another transmitter on your frequency. I have found through experience; however, that a lot of the non-transmitter noise that comes through on a frequency has no effect on RC whatsoever.

Frankly, I think a cheaper and better idea is to simply buy a receiver and crystal for your frequency along with a battery pack and servo. Plug it all in and if it starts jumping around you've got positive confirmation of interference.

I don't know much about electronics, I'd like to hear what some experts think about the idea.

1Eye

My Feedback: (2)

The IC-R2 is Okay but check out the Icom IC-R10. There is/was optional PC-based software you can use to configure that little bugger to do just about any monitoring/scanning chore you'd want. Go to <http://www.icomamerica.com/> and plug in "scanner" into the search block.
Some guys out there are absolute wizards on setting up these Icom scanners. I think Rich Fong had posted some Icom scanner tips once or at least a URL to some place else for tips.

Mike

Ron Ballard

Ken,

The AMA now has scanners in all districts for use by clubs and members. Contact your local AMA AVP , he or she should have one for your use. I received mine last month for use here in District 6. If anyone out there needs one, contact me, all you are out is the shipping....

Best regards,
Ron Ballard
AMA AVP Dist. 6

KXH121

My Feedback: (20)

Thanks Guys for the help, especially Ron, good news to hear!!

DavidR

My Feedback: (1)

I have one of the ICOM R2's and it is a handy little unit. I am not as concerned with someone else on my frequency as I am concerned with ECU generated RF interference. There is a good article by Gordon Dickens on the JPO website in the Hints and Tips section. www.jetpilots.org


David Reid

bvmjethead

My Feedback: (10)

Jack Holland sells a nice frequency monitor. It's about the size of a small walkie talkie. Check out his website www.genesisjets.com
for further information.

Scott

Phil Cole

http://www.aerospectra.com/ make a handly little spectrum analyser for the RC bands. It does cost quite a bit more than an R2, or even the R10, though.

gtmaxx

My Feedback: (6)

Radio Shack makes a nice little LCD RF Frequency Counter. It can measure RF signals within a 1MHz-1.3GHz range or logic frequency signals within a 0Hz-10MHz range. The price is under $100.00 the last time I checked. You can use the supplied antenna to measure through-air RF signals, or a cable with a male BNC connector (not supplied) for direct frequency measurements.

Silver182

My Feedback: (2)

Check out Joel's Web site, he has detail info about the R-2. E-mail me and I'll return notes on it's use as a "Poor man's spectrum analyzer.

Joel's site:
http://www.charlesriverrc.org/articl...r_icomicr2.htm


Notes: [email protected]

bentwings

Hi from the warbird guys,
I got a freq. scanner from Tower several years ago. I think it is Kyosho (my son has it 800 miles from here) It is a dedicated freq. whatever crystal you use (futaba fm). It was about $50 I think and it worked pretty well. It also was able to detect the general range of the interference. If it lit 2 lites for example, your offender was about 500 feet away. So you only had to kill those people at that range if your plane just went in.
You turned it on or just left it on all the time. It flashed various numbers of lites when interference was around. Dam accurate too!!!!
I don't know if it is still available or not.. they sure didn't push sales of them and I had a very tough time getting the thing. Still have it still use it.

good flying
bentwings

Sport_Pilot

Our club has this scanner. A few weeks ago they claimed my transmitter was interferring with channels as far away as channel 27, I was on 36, they said I could not fly there until I got my radio serviced. I sent the transmitter to Radio South and today they called and said they gave it a clean bill of health. I asked how bad it was and Tony Stillman replied that it was dead on, didn't need tuning! He commented that he is getting a lot of business lately because of these new scanners, most of the time there is nothing wrong! He commented that if you are not using a $10,000 spectrum analyser in a shielded environment you really do not know what you have. Also with several radios on you are going to get a small amount of bleed into other channels. Our radios are allowed a small amount of bleedover into adjacent channels, with a lot of radios on strange things can seem to happen. He stated that if you do not know what these tolerances are you should not be kicking people out!

KXH121

My Feedback: (20)

OK.............thanks Sport Pilot.