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As editor, I am going to stand in for Bill as he is on a trip the northeastern
part of the good old US of A. Since the club completed the safety
fence with chain link, there have been several comments about possible
radio interference. Tom Fenn has done some research on this and the following
are his results.
I decided to do some checking to find out if there is anything about a
problem with chain link fence. I started with AMA and received an email
from Steve Kaluf (Technical Director) who stated that there could be a
problem if the pilot allows his antenna to get lower than the fence. He
also stated that a 4 foot could be uncomfortable to fly behind because
of its height. The bottom line was that the fence itself is not a problem.
I then checked with Technical Support at Futaba, JR, and Airtronics, all
had the same thoughts.
A. Fly as close to the fence as possible.
B. Keep as much antenna as possible extended past the fence.
C. Never point the Antenna directly at the plane.
D. Never turn so that the antenna is parallel with the fence line.
E. Never let the fence get in the line of sight between the antenna and
plane. (Dont let the antenna dip below fence height). All of these safety
items should be practiced no matter what the height of the fence is.
While talking to Airtronics (Bobby Tom) he stated he has found more
problems with servo noise and antenna leads too close to the servos. He
stated that servo noise can vary between 72 and 75 MHz (and that is death
to a aircraft). He also said that if someone with Airtronics equipment
is having problems, that if they send the equipment to him and reference
my conversation with him, he will change the channel frequency free of
charge as to try and eliminate interference on a particular channel.
As a final thought, he recommended that I contact Jack Albrecht (who works
for Airtronics and also is on the AMA staff), who he considers an expert
in this field. Jack reinforced all the recommendations above and
stated that common sense usage was first and foremost.
They all stated that strange things have happened at fields that were not
able to be explained, but they all agreed that they did not think the fence
itself was a problem.
Tom
Club
Meeting
The next meeting of the MMRCC is scheduled for August 4, 2005 at 7:00 P.M.
The meeting will be held at the Northrop Grumman facility. Personnel are
required to sign-in and sign out for security purposes.
See you at the meeting. Will |
