Tech: A little RC receiver history (50 years worth)

[@BNConnection]

Count your blessings - I'm only 71 years old, I was a Nuclear Power instructor in the day, qualified submariner, did R&D for the fabrication of the M1A1 tank armor package and I'm so impressed with the retention you have of all your knowledge. I forget my everyday routines just looking in the mirror in the morning. I hope there is a technology that will someday be able to download all that wonderful information you carry with you everyday. Good Health to you and Thx for all you do!

[@alex26i]

he is doing it now. youtube.

[@JimN5QL]

Brings back memories. My first receiver was a super Regen on 27 megahertz single Channel Rudder only escapement operated. I had to deal with CB radios and truck drivers so I could not fly anywhere near a major road. I still have the escapement for my first plane! This was from either the late 50s or early 60s. Thanks for showing these steps through history!

[@nmsidewinder]

LMAO ! yep the truckers just loved to key their microphones just to watch you guy go nuts.. lol Ah, the good old days of CB radios with linear amplifiers to boost their transmit power. Now they all use smartphones. lol It was also fun on Christmas day when some poor kid got a RC car or truck and key the CB radio.. lol ( what, who me, I wouldn't do that) LMAO !

[@modellerjeff]

I must be younger than some of your viewers as I started in the late 1960’s with Galloping Ghost on 27mhz superhet so had the luxury of being able to fly up to 8 models together. Never happened though. Your video was both educational and brought back many memories. Tell kids how lucky they are today and they won’t believe it.

[@donjohnson2639]

I was born in 74 so I’m a bit younger than you but I started RC in the 80’s and even then the electronics were big and bulky compared to modern day. Love these videos featuring vintage RC stuff 👍😀

[@aakashjana6225]

fast forward today, in the year 2021 we have receiver like the Express LRS receivers that are small like a thumbnail and boast over 30kms of range. And we now complain about how difficult it is to solder wires to such a smal pcb while the grandpas of this hobby look at it and find it unbelievable how small things have gotten.

[@tedhancock68]

Wonderful history lesson! I started waaayy back in 2016. I thought a lot had changed since then!

[@navigator902]

Your programs are fabulous, these comparisons give a total understanding, of where RC receivers have traveled in time.... Thank you Bruce, Always learn more every video, w/ a cup of tea.

[@migry]

My interest is electronics. As a kid (in the 70's) I used to get RC books from the local library. I was always fascinated with the circuits. I did try to build a transmitter and superhet receiver, but they never worked and I didn't have a way to test them. It's still on my bucket list to re-visit that old design and re-make it and get it working! I still have the RX, but sadly not the TX for which I made a PCB.

[@75ajw]

Great video. Amazing how technology has moved forward. My path was Sanwa 27meg, Futaba PCM, JR PCM, Spektrum, FrSky. My JR PCM 9 Tx felt like an amazing piece of kit, with its balance and smoothness. Learning to fly in the 80s and 90s meant frequency pegs, buddy boxes, power panels, the smell of glow fuel, time spent getting intimate with your O.S. 40, and that glorious feel of turning over the prop on your just-run engine after a successful landing. Not to mention the unavoidable learning curve of guiding an RC model in flight. One shouldn’t needlessly cling to the past, but in this day and age of return-to-base, Instant brushless power, FPV and new drone regulation, it’s nice to remember and reflect on the path of evolution.

[@onerider808]

My first radio (and the radar I maintained) were vacuum tube versions...servo mechanical ballistic computer. Back when troubleshooting to the component level meant something. Ah, those were the days....say I as I go to fly my FPV miracle of technology. I miss the design and troubleshooting issues, but these are the days! Good episode.

[@MicheleBoland]

Our families first R/C plane was a rubber escapement with with a supergen receiver in a Carl Goldberg "Good Neighbor". We had so much fun with that plane! Later we upgraded the plane to a crystal receiver and galloping ghost set up. So much fun! Later on I got 6 channel PCS and then later a Proline. I quit for a little bit and then came back in a serious way and was JR all the way. Last most excellent radio from the period was the first generation JR PCS 9. Best transmitter feel I have ever seen! I really enjoyed this video!

[@BMSWEB]

Only one of those is before my time lol Love these videos Bruce! Love Em!!!!

[@Aarons14bugs]

Love picking up history of the things I love. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos!

[@sulphur_fpv]

Thanks for the great history lesson Bruce. It is very interesting to see how much things have changed over the years. 👍

[@segwaydave]

Thanks for the tour down amnesia lane! Those where the days. Many thanks for posting. Brought back some fond memories.

[@jeffbluejets2626]

Had one of those pixie sets. Two motorised escapements, one rubber band escapement and the dit dot code written out on a note pad page by the original owner. Sadly all lost along with all my workshop gear in the 2013 flood. Just getting somewhere near normality back now. Mate of mine has an early 8 channel reed set, still operational.

[@DaveStroble]

Really interesting subject...thanks for visiting this topic. Best to you from Seattle, WA.

[@danielharman4437]

Gets me excited to think about what we’ll have in the next 30 years😁

[@alanssnack1192]

we will probably go backwards

[@alanssnack1192]

elon musk said that things inventions and innovations dont just happpen, but i disagree, with the college system today i think innovation is built in.

[@awuma]

Nope. Read Feynman's comments about the Brazilian college system ... it all very much depends on culture and opportunities.

[@alanssnack1192]

and how do i find Feynman's comments about the Brazilian college system>?

[@G56AG]

I have a Citizenship Galloping Ghost transmitter and receiver as well as the actuator. Super regen receiver of course, I bought it in the late 60's. It was on 27 mhz, terrible band to be on, one CB nut with a linear amp could bleed over the entire band and shoot you down, never had a lot of luck with it. No real RC success till a new hobby shop opened up, the owner was an RC guy, sold me a 4 ch EK Logictrol proportional radio and taught me to fly it. I'm 72 now, slowing down but still doing RC.

[@dylanzacher3474]

awesome video Bruce, i love your teachings.

[@alasdair4161]

Excellent video Bruce. My grandfather had a couple of valve receivers, still driving an escapement. The valves were tiny, like an inch of pencil, and it needed an A and B battery (~45v).. talk about crash damage..! I don't know how the heaters stood up to a nitro engine, just lots of foam I guess.. The transmitter was a big metal box with a couple of switches and a huge antenna, it was the Taranis of the 50's!

[@didactylos4diddy474]

Great video. I had the OS pixie system for my first RC plane (powered glider) and a MacGregor single channel for my first boat. Nice to see that someone kept their early gear

[@agentbertram4769]

Nice bit of history Bruce. Thanks!

[@GadgetReviewVideos]

1980 is when I started, things have changed a lot. I remember the clothes clip with a color flag on your telescopic antenna indicating what crystal or frequency you are running in the race so no one else turns theirs on and controls your RC unit. But this still happened, either by mistake or intentionally causing you to crash and loose the race, qualifying round or heat. Once spectrum came on the market it changed everything and made it a lot easier for people not to accidental turns theirs on at the bench while another team was racing. 5:14 is a coil, red, white, gold, silver is 2.9 µH, ±10%, I believe they are also sometimes called a fixed inductor or throng whole choke.

[@haldersoham4]

Makes me feel like a very small person. It's amazing how technology evolved. Appreciate you very much for the deep insight! Liked and subscribed. :)

[@joecaraco7503]

Thanks for the trip through time!

[@eg5160]

Thanks for another awesome video Bruce; what I'd like to learn more about is how to use spectrum analyzers (such as the RF Explorer) to evaluate our radio link quality at the field, especially when flying our more expensive aircraft.

[@anthonybradford7732]

This was an interesting video Bruce - your bench videos are always pretty reliable - showing some interesting historical stuff. And so was the 1940’s doco. I was reminded of the fantastic videos you used to do way back in your hangar. They were great. The things that you complained about were the things that made them great such as the rain on the roof or the clouds passing over or chargers beeping or planes running down the runway. You had the ultimate men’s shed, a hangar at an airport FGS!!! Every man’s dream. There was always interesting stuff happening and interesting stuff in the background. Lotsa experiments over the years has us all wondering “what-the-hell is that?” Your ‘studio’ doesn’t seem to have quite the same appeal; suddenly you became just like everyone else. I for one would enjoy more videos like this. Maybe, as a suggestion, something historic on control-line models. I couldn’t get the dam things to fly and years later I worked out why. It was because the wires - the only ones available from Modelair at the time - were too heavy. But as a kid I ignorantly continued to persevere, frustratingly. (I used to try and fly them in Tok at the park opposite the ‘Pink Pus’ before the supermarket was built). Or, how about a look back at some more of the old publications with some inside commentary, you have done this in some past videos. I reckon there would be lots of viewers like me out there who are similar age to you who would get a kick out of that sort of stuff. It’s an area where you would unquestionably dominate. It might add some extra videos to your growing collection.

[@lasersbee]

brings back memories. I still have my fist radio transmitter... an OS Pixie TA-2 single channel with a push button switch. It uses a crystal at 27.120 MHz. Basically just a remote ON-OFF switch to run a rubber powered escapement giving Right, Neutral, Left and Neutral commands in sequence.

[@lasersbee]

Thanks for the informative Link... very similar to the escapement I had.

[@kberry3065]

Great content Bruce, it does make me feel a little old.

[@tenlittleindians]

I still have a couple of old transmitters from the beep box days with the single button. Rubber band escapements could be bent up and soldered from early how to magazines. The airplanes liked to fly beyond range never to return and left plenty of lonely transmitters in the dust!

[@martinj9647]

If you think it's amazing how small a little 0805 passive can be, you should look at "microfoot" transistors. I have 4 pin transistors that are less than half the size of an 0805 resistor. They're almost impossible to work with without a microscope. The fact there is a process that can etch and cut silicon precisely with repeatability at that scale, and at a way that only costs pennies per piece is incredible to think about. Even more so when you consider that that's not even "small" in terms of what's really small today.

[@d.j.fearlessiam8125]

A lot of Corporation's produced RC , However before ALL this R.C. stuff in the video... R.C Was built by hand...I am lucky enough to have one of the first RC components built by man before the industry took Off... Dinosaurs! Nice video!!!

[@Targetmaster1066]

Great stuff - I still have a single channel McGregor from 1965. Just a pulse button driving a rubber band powered escapement.

[@hansleatherby1032]

Fascinating video - thanks Bruce - keep them coming

[@PeterWinnett]

Great Vid. a nice walk down memory lane. I started with the old 27mhz AM, even before it was changed to FM :) only 8 pegs on the field flight Board. This was around 1970 I guess, only seems like yesterday :) :) regards, Pete

[@JosteinBakklund]

Could be fun to compare gyro stabilizers from different eras too. I had a heli in the early 80's equipped with a one-axis gyro stabilizer on the tail, based on a tilting electric motor with flywheels of brass and a separate control unit connected between the receiver and the tail-servo. The small heli that I have today, has a 3-axis solid-state gyro and accelerometer embedded into the receiver, and the whole thing weights far less than my old gyro-unit alone. The RC-controllers for helis is a story on their own. They had so many switches back then, that they really deserved their nickname - the horlled mine. Touching wrong switch on my old JR could lead to disaster, so my contemporary and slightly modified DX6i feels a lot more comfortable - and safe.

[@whitney3383]

I have a old fubtaba fm 9 Chanel fm radio. Still works! It has fail safe. You also choose any Chanel to fly on. Set receiver that set radio. 32 position swichtes.

[@gaskelldave]

Brilliant! More like this please. Can you go into more detail about what regenerative and superheterodyne mean please. Thanks.

[@RLEJ0224]

Wow, look how far we've come technologically.

[@captapraelium1591]

Awesome video Bruce! This was like a "while you were sleeping" video for me. Nice to know what I've been missing!

[@KeithSilva2]

Wonderful video! I would like to see more similar R/C history reviews. I started flying R/C in the mid-1960's. By then, we were past regen receivers and were using crystal controlled receivers on 27 mhz.

[@dannymoore3703]

There are about 15 or so more resistors/capacitors on that receiver smaller than the smallest one you showed

[@JESchnake]

Yeah only one of them that I haven't used in my 30 plus years of RC. Yes I loved having a crash with the older models and having to replace a crystal if you was lucky. Great flash back video.

[@fhuber7507]

I have some 1930's magazines with the schematics to make escapement based RC systems. First RC models at the NAA Nats (before the AMA) were in 1936

[@BadWallaby]

Thanks Bruce! I started when crystals were a big issue and the cheap RCs from toy stores came with one frequency and if you lost or broke the radio we made them into battlebots lol!

[@zer001]

I think somewhere in a black hole there is a Futaba 27mhz receiver and an Acoms Technisport TX. :)

[@TheXJ12]

I think the second crystal on the PCM receiver is not for dual conversion but for digital processing...

[@rfpcs1]

I still have 2 of those Transistor receivers.

[@mscir]

Varactors are magic.

[@LA6UOA]

So cool, Bruce! I got into this at the XTAL days. Remember the glitches... Oh well, good to hear a fella ham speaking radio stuff! Keep it up ;-)

[@M0rdH0rst]

I started flying with my father in the seventies, already on 35 MHz, but AM. You could hear the transmitter in a short-wave radio :) The worst thing I've come across was a broken crystal. It worked fine, as long as the motor wasn't running at a certain RPM. Exciting times those were ;o)

[@RobisonRacing68]

Cool stuff Bruce!

[@dave1135]

Except for that really old receiver you showed, alot of those I still fly with, including the transmitters. I have modern GHz equipment, but also have some 72mhz stuff that still works fine.

[@awuma]

Depend on bandwidth, though. The bandwidths were narrowed in 1991.

[@quadstardrones]

Thanks for bringing back some memories :)

[@AppliedMetaphysician]

You know? The first time I felt old was when I started feeling the need to say "Back when..."; and yeah, PLL's & VCO's were hot stuff. :D

[@SonAndDadFPV]

Always flew Graupner (JR) in the eighties (FM and PCM) and never had any glitch or problem in the system. (All my crashes were pilot related... lol)

[@mixblast1]

I would have liked if you had reverse engineered the schematic for that first receiver, put it on screen, and briefly talked about how the components work together :)

[@joeshmo5399]

Could you do something on protocols like spektrum, Futaba, Flysky, Frysky, Lightbridge, Occusync and whatever Hubsan is using? There history pros and cons etc. Thanks

[@Nebul3r]

excellent content as always, sorry been away for a while hope youre doing well sir i have a question, how did rc pilots fly long range 1.2ghz back in the day if there was no fpv goggles, ive tried looking for information but nothing solid

[@dcsmith5839]

Thanks for the history,when I was young (50s and 60s) I flew control line, because this equipment was out of reach moneywise.

[@joacimwennerberg8310]

Thanks Bruce! :)

"I don't have any valve gear" I'm a bit younger than you and I do. (Or I did... need to dig in the shed pile) :D Good God, those 1.2v (60v anode) miniature tubes were true jewlels! And just as pricey!

[@skinnyflea2628]

Why where the frequency’s so low? I guess it would be the technology at the time but I just find it interesting

[@DKoppJr]

Great video.... I like tech vids!!!

[@fulltimejunglist9534]

Great info,enjoyed hearing this. :)

[@huckaberryfpv4986]

Going bak n time (nostalgia) Thanks breski:)

[@TR-he4jd]

Would love to see a single channel project with old school escapement. I tried at the time but lost the model and didn’t pursue again.

[@glensteep4239]

Still have OS pixi set box and all still works.

[@bobtaylor6210]

Good info keep up the great vids 😎🇺🇸

[@jasonpan4]

Reminds me the smart diy kits when I was in school back in 1997

[@alanssnack1192]

you? whooo arrrrre yooou?

[@jasonpan4]

Iam Jason :p

[@Tump2010]

Speaking about receivers, what would be the best setup for micros and ultra micros with dipole antennas on the vtx?

[@Barsabus]

Thump2010 I don't know

[@3000gtwelder]

Great video! Could you do a video on the X-Lite, and the new 900Mhz long range system for FrSky?

[@AussieVeteran71]

Very informative , as I have no knowledge of electronics at all.

[@alanssnack1192]

i have one of those old 80's receivers, is it worth anything? or should i throw it? its a bit fucked up, has glue all over it and the long wire antenna is not there and no obvious place wear to glue it back on.

[@Evolution8R]

Cool video, very cool!

[@TakeItToTheGround]

Cox 0.049 control line. That is low tech old school. Spin in a circle and fall over at the end. Good old days? No way, but it was still fun Today is a billion times better.

[@fhuber7507]

RC came before Control Line. Escapement and galloping ghost RC were in use before WWII Control line came at the end of WWII

[@TakeItToTheGround]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_line ( The origins of control-line flight are obscure but the first person to use a recognizably modern system is generally considered to be Oba St. Clair, in June 1936, near Gresham, Oregon )

[@scottfirman]

TakeItToTheGround that was my first and last experience with flying scale planes. I couldn't afford transmitters and receivers back in the 1980's. I was busy raising kids anyways. That was my hobby back then. Now it's my time for me to enjoy! Flying RC is cheaper and allows more people the experience. It has caused a few issues with the old timers but they are all passing on in age. It's a great time to pick up vintage RC stuff at a fraction of the prices.

[@atomictraveller]

quite interesting, please take some CBD to stick around for a few more tech generations! :)

[@alanssnack1192]

if rc or bicycles never existed, i would kms.

[@rodyoung276]

Great 👍🏽 to see the plane runway pass. 0000ties Lol

[@simrcchannel]

wow....learnt a lot and thanks a lot

[@endemiller5463]

How big were the receivers in control line?...... aaahhh - thats right.

[@iforce2d]

How does a frequency hopping system sync itself?

[@GadgetReviewVideos]

I believe you still do one initial sync sometimes holding down a button on the RX or both the RX and TX sort of like pairing Bluetooth devices. . Each unit has a unique hardware address build into the RX and TX usually referred to with most stuff as a MAC address. This is the same MAC address with WiFi radio for internet off a access point or WiFi router. Also is used in networking hard wire. The readings RX/TX has thus same type of unique address so when yo I turn the transmitter back on it knows what receiver to talk with and what one is yours. They then agree on what frequency to start on after scanning and seeing what ones are not in use. In the early 90’s people were stealing TV cable and they turned in frequency hopping during a pay per view unexpectedly. Everyone that called into support basically admitted they were stealing the cable just because they called, lol. People who paid never lost signal and saw the whole even, lol. Just like a garage door opener has to be synced once’s then they also change the frequency every time the button is pressed. Older door openers were flawed because they repeated the same frequencies in a loop so thus could still be bypassed. And same goes for car key fobs, but now we are licking random hopping and encrypting between the TX and RX for security making it harder for people to clone the garage door opener or or Car fob. Oh, and let’s not forget Cordless telephones, they called is DSS (digital spread spectrum) but basically the same hoping just digital and not analog. Then police, fire, EMT emergency services did frequency hopping called trunking. This made al, the police scanner useless at the time in the beginning so people didn’t know they had cops about to kick down the door on them. It can still done with some older units from some car companies just a few years ago, but I won’t get into his it’s done. Tech try’s to make it harder but vulnerabilities are still found just like breaking into your WiFi encryption called WEP that was broke, then WPA, and I think WPA2 is vulnerable now. But now we can update the firmware and fix it most times. WPA3 was recently approved and it again supposed to be harder and more secure. So basically I guess I’m saying these radio technologies are not used in RC receivers and transmitters, they are used with all radio technologies. I hope this helps. RF is interesting. FYI, this is a very basic overview and examples, it can be a lot more to these technologies. Even Bluetooth now uses encryption but didn’t in the beginning. The biggest move that allows a lot more things to run on the same frequency ranges is going digital from analog. Still this doesn’t mean that the frequencies get overcrowded affecting the range and performance since Bluetooth, WiFi, cordless phones, and even most RX use 2.4Ghz causing it to affect your range or even sometimes loose control with all the noise and so many things on it. This is why it’s important to use quality gear, a cheap FPV TX can be way out of spec and over powered and affect everyone else that’s flying FPV. I’ve tested some cheap overpowered FPV transmitters that knocked out my 5GHZ WiFi it was so bad. More power doesn’t always equal better performance. In fact better tuned frequencies squeal better performance. More power can end up causing an unstable frequencies and generate just noise with less range and inter fear with others.

[@rowanballinger3690]

What’s the best way to learn electronics with out university. I would love to learn more

[@lasersbee]

Google is your friend...........

[@winstonsmith478]

Hearing aid tube (valve) based RC receiver tear-down please. Maybe someone will donate one? I wonder if they ever made one using Nuvistors.

[@507fasfpv2]

Yes!!! Love it..

[@johnnydepp4114]

ahhh remember when smd components were the new black :)

[@wadestewart3042]

Awesome awesome awesome

[@peterzingler6221]

That's an inductor not an resistor there judging by the form

[@bennymack78]

Noughties! Yessss

[@nmsidewinder]

Isn't anything 50 years old or older considered an antique? LOL My gosh, I recognize all of those components on the older boards, I've made my own single sided circuit boards myself. I guess this means I'm an antique as well. LMAO ! (68 years young here ) :o) I can remember truckers when they used CB radios with linear amplifiers to boost their transmitting power going by a RC park that was near the freeway. They would key their microphones just to watch the RC pilots go nuts when they got their controller frequencies jammed and the aircraft fly off. LMAO ( sorry, I guess you had to be there to enjoy the irony of it). Thanks for the video and making me feel like I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. lol :o)

[@MrTommymxr]

An intro?

[@RollsFPV]

Awesome

[@steamboatmodel]

What no Valve (tube) gear or Reed equipment. First RC model aircraft I seen flown was in about 1955 (I was six), It had about a six foot wingspan, was hand launched by two guys rose flew a large square around the field and landed. The guys who flew it celebrated with Beer and Champaign for the adults and ice-cream and pop for us childeren.

[@MikeDesertHunterHale]

I flew Black Flag (50Mhz) in the US. Remember when PCM came in - WOW... lol

[@davidnieuwland]

You left out the first generation of Spektrum 2.4 receivers wich is a good thing because they were crap in a nice packaging. Horizon hobby is still laughing about it I guess.

[@evo-labs]

The change in the cases from a rigid plastic to shrink wrapping/cardboard should not be ignored in terms of size reduction, however that makes the product less resilient to damage. I'm not convinced that's a technological advancement, but more a cost saving measure.

[@bBrain]

yea the time frames were way off. lol he kept saying "80s" i was like naw we had nothing like that in the 80s. lol

[@alanssnack1192]

gr8 hideo

[@brookecarrillo2654]

Aaaaaa memory's