Any advice on a reliable radio system ???

[detox]

Do not rigid mount your receiver. Wrap loosely in plastic sandwich bag to avoid getting wet and soaking up bad vibrations.

[gsbuickman]

Hi guys

Hi guys, wow what a feedback response. I appreciate it, but let me clarify something.

As far as nautibyz's question goes, my short antenna is vertical hrough a watertight grommet
Now for everyone else. My original intention was not to buy the cheapest radio available. I had a substantial size fleet and at 1 point in time, I had 9 controllers. All those controllers were taking up a lot of space and I was buying batteries wholesale.

I decided to remedy the situation, and consolidate all my vehicles to 1 controller if possible. The flysky was recommended by all the guys at my local track. For land vehicles it's flawless and for the price of it and additional rx's, it cant be beat.

I thought I simply got lucky when the box said it was for boats as well. It turns out, its awesome for my cars and trucks, but it sucks ass for boats.

What I was after was input on reliable controllers for use over the water. There's am, fm. 2.4, fhss and fsgk etc. Ill keep the fs 2.4 for my cars and trucks. I'll buy a 2nd controller for any boats i pick up. I just wanted advice and wondered what you guys found to work well. I was looking for cost efffective with the price of additional receivers. That's why I ditched my JR radios and my Futaba. Additional receivers were $95 apiece, no thanks.

I just don't want to throw away dinoro's on a radio that's gonna be junk on the water.
Thanks guys !!!

[Grimracer]

GS

In my opinion there is really only one system for over the water and that’s Futaba.. the results from the FASSTest marine team is over powering the other systems on the market.

http://www.futaba-rc.com/team/team-racing-drivers-marine.html

Having said this, the below system is the very same system I use at work for ALL my marine testing. Truth is this little radio has been all over the country with me.. I take it to all the operating shows I have done. Regardless of location, junk around the pond and what not.. it has NEVER let go of ANY of my boats.. EVER!..
Make mine FUTABA!

http://www.futaba-rc.com/systems/futk2021.html

Sincerely, Grimracer

[siberianhusky]

Spektrum with the marine RX. Changed over from Futaba two years ago and couldn't be happier. I had been a Futaba user since the mid 80's racing cars and nitro boats.
Lost a 3.5 tunnel with a Futaba radio for no reason anybody can figure out, Bought the Spektrum and have never had a glitch, I've even used the surface telemetry RX at closer ranges when testing, I use the temp probes then. Way easier than having to constantly bring in the boat and un-tape it when testing.
The other thing you can do is swap RX's between boats, I never take all my boats to the pond at the same time so I figure why have recievers in boats that won't be used for a while. Some of my boats get used weekly so they get their own RX.

[Griff]

just another thumbs up for the spekky DX3C been faultless, just the right amount of settings that are useful,

[Stinger9D9]

BUY A TACTIC! I have them in all my boats. They work great.
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXWRP3&P=ML

Yeah...what he said. They work great and only use 4 AA batteries (which last seemingly forever on a charge in my experience).

If the one that's labelled Tactic is too expensive to convince you, get the Tower branded one for $5 less.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXWPW0&P=7

...and extra receivers are only $20 each!

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXXLR4&P=7

No antenna wires, and the boat will pretty much be be out of sight before it's out of radio range. No antenna wires either.

[sailr]

I forgot to mention that the best part about the tactic is the receiver has no external antenna that has to be outside the hull!

[Fluid]

I changed from a Spektrum radio due to intermittent performance failures. My FASST 4PK has been flawless, which I require. Zero radio issues even at oval races with hundreds of boats, in carbon fiber hulls, or at SAW events pulling 300+ amps. Can't afford a loss of radio signal at 90 mph.

But the FASST is far from cheap. The Tactic has excellent sport performance, it's only problem is single model memory.


.

[LarrysDrifter]

Suckmywake and myself have had range issues with my Spektrum dx2s and his dx3s with both mr3000 & mr200 recievers. Yes, we have the longer wire in an antennae mount on the outside. I also have issues with the same tx in land vehicles using the car/truck recievers (cant remember the rx model). Rather dissapointing.

[gsbuickman]

Good news !!!

Hi guys, I got a sweet score. I just won the bid on a Pro Boat Retrieval duck for $100

Best part is, it comes with a Spektrum DX3S radio. Now I can use the marine receivers in my boats. If anything goes wrong with a boat and she starts drifting, I can run the duck out to go get r done and bring it back. So I got a rescue duck and a Spektrum radio for a ben franklin !!.

Works for me for now.

[Darin Jordan]

Nice... Welcome to the fold!

OIne feature about the Spektrum that most people don't know about is that you can plug in more than one boat, get them all taped up, and set the TX to one of the models... go run it, and then, when you switch models to the other boat, it will arm and you can go run that one... May be somewhat ESC dependant, but with all my Castles, this works... I was able to have three or even 4 boats taped up and ready to launch at a time-trial recently, and would run one, bring it in, then swtich models and run the next. Obviously, GREAT car needs to be taken with any armed boat, so be careful when doing this.

[gsbuickman]

Hi guys, I just heard something interesting. Thought I would throw it out here and see what you thought. I was at the local indoor track and heard a guy having a group discussion. Apparently he thinks hes the local mt wizard. He was giving a radio lesson.

He was telling everybody that am and fm radios work on radio waves for the signal to be carried to the receiver. Ok that's true, everyone knows that. He started in on 2.4 systems. He claims 2.4 radios work on the line of sight principal, as long as you can see your vehicle you have fantastic reception. If you drive your vehicle behind a solid object, so its between you and the vehicle you'll lose the signal and possibly your vehicle. Circumstances depending of course.

I dont know how much truth to that theroy, but it seems a lil farfetched. Maybe he was talkin about the early 2.4 systems ???. Any ideas ?.

[sailr]

Early Spektrum radios had that problem. If you were racing and somebody's rooster tail got between you and your boat you could lose it.

[suckmywake]

This has been my experience with radios. I sold my Spektrum dx3s and all receivers due to have poor range issue and numerous receivers failures. I bought a Flysky FS-GT3B and 10 receivers from Hobbypartz.com (less than $100 shipped). I opened up all receivers and Corrosive X them. I installed a lipo in transmitter for power. I could not be happier with this radio. It just works for me on land or water. It has better reception than my Spektrum ever did on land or water. I did have one receive of the ten that only had a range about 100ft. I replaced with a spare and the problem went away. I can handle a $7 lost. After changing that one bad receiver I never had a range problem with this radio with over two month of use even with the antenna placed down in the hull on some of my boats. I had some receivers wet and it was not a problem the still worked. Even when my boats flip upside down I still have radio contact with it. The only down side is that the receivers binds to the radio and not the model selected like Spektrum. This radio has just plain worked for me and I am very happy I switched.

[Fluxn81]

I'm still running the stock Tactic on my UL-1, but I'll eventually throw in a rx for my Futaba 4PK. I highly suggest Futaba over Spektrum. Do some searching and save if you have to.