BE AWARE
There are at least 2 radios (TX) that are being sold by certain Supermarkets complete with an electric plane. The radios are AM 35megs which is Illegal but worse than that, these radios bleed from 25megs all the way through 50megs, so anything in the sky is going to come crashing down. SAMAA are working fast on this to get the radios withdrawn but who knows how much damage has already been done?
The one radio is called a “Skysport 2” which is a Futaba name but this radio is not a Futaba and the other is called a “Free Control”. We must stamp out this scourge NOW.
Picture 1: A standard Tx on the 35. Mhz band. Output is correct.
Picture 2: The rogue Tx switched on but no commands given. Power is low and it looks harmless enough.
Picture 3 is the rogue Tx with a stick pushed across. Note the setup on the analyser that is way beyond the 35 MHz band we are using and how the Tx is splattering signals across the whole band.This rogue Tx is on 35.460 Mhz but the splatter was enough to interfere with another Rx on 35.010 Mhz. These Tx’s were bought in Makro with a twin engined electric aircraft for about R395-00. To climb both motors are given full power, to turn one of the motors is slowed down. All our normal transmitters are Frequency modulated (FM) and as such are tight enough to operate at 10 KHz spacing. This rogue transmitter is Amplitude Modulated (AM) plus the modulation is by a series of square waves. Square waves are known to be rich in harmonics, hence the terrible splatter. The RF stages in the Tx are of poor quality and do nothing to curb this splatter. The output power when the stick is moved is almost on a par to a standard Radio Control transmitter so range is high and splatter is wide. Please report any occurrences of these transmitters to SAMAA right away and warn the owner that he is Illegally and dangerously operating a transmitter.
Simulator:
1. Download FMS
