[LASS Soaring] "Got the Xtreme and Its Goofed UP!"

[GordySoar at aol.com]

I was told that it was a Module and the 8 Channel RX, but I opened up the  
bag and its a 10 channel!
 
I hate it when this sort of crap happens :-)
 
The 10 channel is huge!  I can barely fit it into the new Blaster 2  DLG 
fuse. Which by the way is wayyy cool, 
It has a neat pylon mount for the  wing, and the pod is bottom and topless 
with a servo deck filling the middle  sandwiched in the carbon sides.
 
I took the RX apart to see what the antenna looked like inside and how  small 
it could actually get with shrink wrap instead of the case, in the case it  
will fit every sailplane I know of including the skinny Sharon fuse.
 
The outside of the case has a 1" tall hard conical antenna shape. But I  
found that it is only a cover for the actually antenna.  The cover is hard  
plastic, nothing that has to do with receiving radio waves from aliens or the  like.
 
Underneath is where it gets intersting.  The body of the RX consists  of two 
boards opposing each other, with almost nothing showing other than a  stiff 
piece of multistrand wire soldered to a spot on one board sticking up  
vertically.
 
The instructions say still stuff like keeping it 2" away from anything  
carbon or metal....silly rabits :-) Clearly they don't realize that sailplaners  
don't read instructions...we are to busy considering a tighter landing pattern  
or why that bird made that turn that way just now.
 
Guessing is all  I'll be able to do for now, but the possibility  thinker in 
me says, that I can drill a hole in the bottom of the fuse or side or  top, to 
let that piece of wire stick out into the air. Same as I have been doing  
with my Picolario wire antenna since the day I got it.  (everyone says what  is 
that white string hanging out the bottom of you fuselage?  And of  course the 
assumption is that it turns on the reading light in the  canopy.)
 
However, this version is a top load servo plug version so them and their  
wires would restrict the depth of reach of that little 1" in piece of wire  
sticking out the fuse....IF it NEEDS to.
 
ALL of the servo plug pin solder points are clearly exposed on the bottom  of 
the board, easy to get to if you wanted to solder on pigtails.  Probably  a 
good thing, because without the case on, it would likely be floating around in  
the fuse, it could the extra weight.
 
Here are some things we need to find out about this kind of system.

Ground range check?  How do you do it?
Will it work just fine with the antenna extended out the normal way.   
remember sailplaners couldn't give a crap about signal strength, half loop waves  or 
any other thing related to radios and antenna.  We wouldn't even have a  
radio or antenna if there were some easier way to do it.  All we NEED is  glitch 
free rounds :-)
So don't bother going off on some antenna theory.

We have product its time to do some real testing in our  sailplanes.  The 
time for talk is past, when everything is done and said  more is gonna get done 
now :-)

Eat your hearts out. :-)
Gordy
Off to Detroit



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