Futaba AM radio's glitching

[emspjay]

Hello,

So all my newer toys and most of my boats have 2.4GHz radio systems and they work perfect. I have a large collection of vintage R/C cars from the 80's and 90's and they all have vintage Futaba AM radio systems in them. I don't use them very often they spend most of their life on the shelf. Over the last few months everyone one of them that I pulled out and used the radio's are glitching, not to the point that they are unusable but just annoying glitching. Do you guys think this is due to how many radio signals are in the air today? Back then we didn't have all this WI-Fi, cell phones, etc.

[NativePaul]

AM was never very good for me, and I saved up for FM after my first car, that was much improved, but things didn't get good till I switched to Multiplex IPD RXs in the late 90s.

Things may be different where you are, but in the UK AM sets are on 27mhz along with ham radios, many of which were home made and wilt potentially very naughty power levels, I suspect our AM band is much clearer now the internet and mobile phones have taken over the utility of ham radio.

2.4ghz is so cheap now, I would suggest buying some more RXs for your 2.4 set and putting them in your vintage cars to alleviate the issue. If your boat radio's RX are too expensive, there are cheap Chinese TX with dirt cheap RX to be had, I am not sure I would use one in a FE boat that could potentially kill or maim someone if it went wrong, but a vintage car is only risking a bruised ankle so I wouldn't think twice if that is all your budget will allow.

[ray schrauwen]

Over time AM and FM will fall out of tune. Capacitors wear out and dielectric dries out.

[emspjay]

I just find it odd that all of them started doing this this summer, some are older than others. Some are pre 1991 and some are gold sticker, they are all 75MHz. My one 27MHz AM Traxxas radio now glitches. I just tested my Pro Boat 27MHz AM system (I think made by JR) that is in my rescue boat and it now glitches and that is not very old.

[Fluid]

More likely there is a new, or more powerful source of RF interference where you are running. Try running in another pond far from this one and see if the problem persists.


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