RC Sailing

RobertN · Aug 13, 2006

GaryM said:
Visiting the club, even if you can't race with them, will provide a lot of information. When we had visitors we always tried to help them get their boats working.

We used to publish a frequency list in our membership roster so folks knew what might be available.

Well, that was a lot of fun. Just got home from the club race.

I watched for a while, then introduced myself and talked to some of the folks. Great bunch! They told me "go get the boat!". I brought it out. They helped me tune it up; the way the booklet describes is confusing at best. About 5 minutes of simple adjustments made a world of difference!

I am on channel 62; nobody was using that channel. So, me and a club member set sail. It was a world of difference. The boat worked SOOOO much better. It is still a little tricky; it's only a 24" long boat. I'm going to go to thier meet next month too. Although I don't think I will get a boat in one of thier classes any time soon, it was fun to watch, and they had no problem letting me sail.

One of the guys that helped me was racing a Seawind. After they finished thier heats, he let me sail it around. Nice... Real nice

It was a really nice afternoon. We sailed, took a picnic lunch, watched the races, sailed some more...

PineRidge · Aug 14, 2006

GaryM said:
Be sure to not turn on your transmitter unless one of the club members says it's OK. You could cause interfearance with another boat and perhaps cause it to damage itself or someone elses boat. There are only so many frequencies available, and if it's a large club they may all be in use.

We used to publish a frequency list in our membership roster so folks knew what might be available.

When my son and I were involved with RC anytime we were at an event the transmitters would all be confiscated and in impound until just before your race.

Each member hung a colored ribbon from their transmitter antenna as it was their turn to race. Each colored ribbon corresponded to a particular frequency, that way it was impossible for someone in your same race to be on the same channel or frequency since there was but one ribbon for each channel.

GaryM · Aug 14, 2006

PineRidge said:
When my son and I were involved with RC anytime we were at an event the transmitters would all be confiscated and in impound until just before your race.

Each member hung a colored ribbon from their transmitter antenna as it was their turn to race. Each colored ribbon corresponded to a particular frequency, that way it was impossible for someone in your same race to be on the same channel or frequency since there was but one ribbon for each channel.

Yes, that's a common method of control. Our club was small enough that each member could pretty much have their own frequency (channel) per boat class. Since we almost never sailed more than one class boat at a time it was easy to contol.

Glad you had a good time, RobertN!