Having a personal radio station brings the most unexpected new information.
While listening to a report on the state-of-the-art of drone aircraft I learned the most astounding thing.
Having a personal radio station brings the most unexpected new information.
While listening to a report on the state-of-the-art of drone aircraft I learned the most astounding thing.
Building and flying drones as a hobby is legal, already has a mature group of followers AND is a matter of part 15 radio control!
Check it out
I am rather disturbed by this trend of applying labels to things that already have names. In this case, the hobby remote controlled planes and trains and boats and cars..always was referred to with two letters...RC, standing for "Remote Control" which is FAR more of a friendlier label than "drone" since the word "drone" has been hammered into the masses heads as a military/monitoring/attacking/bombing device.
And what is the meme lately....police departments and sheriff departments now sporting "drones".
I do not like the idea of applying the same description so distorted as "drone" to a hobby that enhanced my growing pains years and brought people together and was a part of community well being.
Rest assured, this RC hobby will, if it has not already, be considered a potential terrorist threat..at that point you can say goodbye to anything Part 15..even the joy of running your RC boat or airplane or dune buggy.
It's all for safety! :/
RFB
Well Carl, this revelation on your part is surprising. Radio Control has been a part of Americana, as it were, for very many (guessing maybe 70) years. Granted, the 'new generation' of (particularly) airborne vehicles used for recon as well as hobby has advanced with new tech in robotics, but it's certainly nothing new.
I started in RC only a few years ago, but I remember my young days in Japan at Johnson AFB. At that time (1955 right after the Korean War), the Air Force was using RC aircraft with 16mm Minox cameras to track subversive activity outside the fence, and some of my dad's mechanic friends were building scale model aircraft and experimenting with RC using handmade controllers from the military versions. There were also some early experiments in analog telemetry.
But for sure the new civilian versions are much more sophisticated including hi-res miniature video cam tech ... can you imagine what the latest military versions are are capable of?
Of course, there are also boats (both power and sail), race cars, etc., with increasing inclusion of onboard video cameras and other information.
On the civilian side, these devices are using Part 15 controllers.
Ken, RFB, I am the first to admit my mind has been splintered into many categories, old and new. I have seen people along the side of the road in vacant fields flying remote controlled "toy" planes, but at that time I was not thinking about part 15 so I did not know the connection.
Now, in several years of part 15 radio, I have ignored aircraft except when helicopters annoy me with their noise.
So the re-labeling of everything about RC aircraft as "drones" has required updating and collating all of my brain departments.
Some of the models at diydrones.com really look amazing.
In the 1930s, there was a place in West Hartford, CT
called Selden Hill. Some hams that lived in the
area built a HUGE radio controlled glider, that
had a 60 MHz regenerative receiver using
vacuum tubes. They flew the plane a bunch
of times. I do not know how powerful the
transmitter was that commanded the glider's
servo-mechanisms. I believe the year was about
1937, but I'll have to check. A couple of
guys would pick up this huge polished wooden
glider, and throw it off of Selden Hill. And apparently,
the RC glider experiments were very successful.
25 years later, at the bottom of Selden Hill,
a little 6 year old kid walked from his house
to elementary school. That kid was me. (No,
I didn't get hit by the glider - they had stopped
using it years before - besides, local channel 3
was dumping out 100 kW from 60 to 66 MHz
anyway.)
13 years later, a 19 year old kid (me) went over
to a place in Newington, CT called the American
Radio Relay League. There were a whole bunch
of shelves in the lobby. There were a lot of old
ham radio rigs, and on the top of the shelves was
the same glider. The glider is still around, but
it's in storage right now in the year 2012.
I believe the glider's 60 MHz receiver only used
one tube, but again, I'll have to check.
Selden Hill is still there. (My wife and I drove past
it the other day.) I'm still here, and the glider is
still here.
And all of us on Part 15.US are still here. I guess
that pretty much accounts for everything.
Bruce, DOGGRADIO, or...
When I spent too much time trying to get my
Part 15 transmitter to work right, my wife
puts me in the doghouse.
My cousin had an RC airplane way back in the '50's.
The servos were really crude by comparison to todays devices. The servos were a simple escapement clock mechanism powered by a wound up rubber band.
When the TX sent a command the servo simply ran the rudder back and forth for as long as you transmitted the signal. Of course, when the rubber band fully unwound you would have no more control.
WOW!
Bruce, DRS2
I like to look back at early achievements and think of ways of bringing it back.
Rubber band power is a perfect example. There must be some way we can employ wound-up-tight rubber bands in part 15 broadcasting.
Another favorite is two empty cans with a string in between and using them as a battery free telephone. Anybody ever check the frequency response?
EDIT: As an after-thought I just imagined a Studio Transmitter Link by string.
We have an antique set of sound powered telephone handsets at work.
These things are amazing. I've put them at opposite ends of a cable over a mile long and they worked just fine.
No ringer but you could certainly communicate with them.
The rubber band is just to hold the cord together when not in use.
This conversation has triggered a memory of an amazing bonus inside boxes of shredded wheat...
There was a flat piece or two of Balsa wood with cut-out instructions for wings, body, tail and propeller for a glider that could be tossed into a current of air while letting go of a tightly wound rubber band that stretched somehow within the structure, and as the rubber band released its pent up energy the propeller spun real fast and flight was achieved for under a minute.
It even made the hint of a whirring sound.
I have 2 rubber band powered airplanes
in my cellar. They are awesome!
But my wife won't take me over to
the school yard field to play with them.
OH WELL.
I understand those sound powered Headphones
(or telephones)
work absolutely great with crystal sets, if
you happen to have one.
it's just amazing. They needed that technology
then, and they figured out how to do it.
Bruce, DRS2
Mr. Doggradio 2, we know your wife won't let you go to the school yard to fly rubber-band turbo-planes, but let's see how she really feels.
Ask this question, "Dear, would it be ok for me to fly my airplanes up on the roof?"
These things are a gass! Some sales outfits are having a tough time keeping them in stock.
I'm more into weighted combat gliders flown on hillsides in 40 mph winds, but you can fly these ltitle choppers around inside your studio space ... unless they get or cause interference 😉
Ken, that copter is amazing! And only $20?
You, know, copters can hover in one spot...... suppose you equipped it with a part 15 FM transmitter, kept it hovering at 75-feet......
See what I'm saying? Tower-free altitude!
RFB was correct in forecasting the RC hobby being found "a threat".
That is the simple mono-tone thinking being done now by bureaucrats gone wild.
In fact, hobbyists who fly toys will need to be groped and radiated by TSA.
The word drone also applies to a very dull person. Can you see where I'm going with that?