My boat lost connection in the water!!

[1coopgt]

Like many, I have had boats run away in the 40+ years I've been playing with them. Please, as plinse says if you have fail-safe on your radio check and be sure it's set to shut the motor off when you lose radio signal. If you don't have fail-safe I'd seriously consider getting a radio that does. I lost a cat at high speed several years ago, and it ended up hitting someone's dock almost 1/2 mile away. The boat was completely destroyed. I check to be sure no one is on the lake before I run, but it gave me a real scare! These things can do some serious damage. I now run a radio that works with diversity receivers and I add long antennas.

Just curious. Where do you get the longer antenna wires from? I'd like to pick up some longer ones for my receivers.

[NativePaul]

All the name brands sell replacement aerials and generic Chinese ones are available too, they are all interchangeable on a U.fl plug, although I would ignore the Hitec/Multiplex aerials unless you have one of their radios, as they are a sleved dipole designs as opposed to the others that all use a coaxial monopole. Futaba and Frsky at least sell extended ones, the Futaba extended ones are 400mm long.

My first port of call for the OP would be setting the failsafe, then straightening the aerial at the top of the tube, even if it is still in good condition when it is bent over on itself like that it is effectively reducing the length and being an untuned length will drastically reduce range. If that has no effect then as others have said you may have damaged the aerial by bending it over so tightly and for the price it is worth replacing it for a new one if you can easily do it. Most decent radios have the aerial on a U.fl connector and can easily be replaced, but some cheap RXs like those used with my Spektrum DX2 are directly soldered and while it is possible to cut the plug off a normal replacement aerial and fit one, it is not only tricky to do, but the unshielded soldered connection is a bad design, and I would try to find a compatible replacement RX with a plug.

Have a word with other club members/lake users, I travel all over to race, and many times have seen people having radio problem's only for local club members to say "yeah brand X and Y doesn't work well here, because of that phone tower or the airport over there etc, we all use brands A and B". So you could just be flogging a dead horse with that brand's protocol at that location, maybe I have been lucky but my Futaba FASST has always been fine for me, and has always been on the locals A and B list when others have had problems.

[mobius]

I'm using Futaba gear and get long antennas from their service department.