Polks hobby synthesized radio

[Judd Morgan]

http://polkshobby.site.yahoo.net/noname.html

Has anyone had experience with this? Would be nice to have all channels available without crystals. Exponential on the rudder would be a big help also. A knob for jib trim would be a plus too.
Judd

[MichaelJ2K]

Hmmm, it's a nice radio but seems like overkill as far as sailing is concerned. I use an Ace Nautical Commander with two sticks on the left of the transmitter. The outboard stick does the sheeting and the inboard stick does the jib trim. If the boat is properly trimmed, rudder should hardly be touched. I use the rudder trim for "expo" rather than get heavy handed on the rudder stick. Hey it works for me! [:D]

[Jim Linville]

Two of the guys in our club bought them. Both sent them back. The Polk folks were great. They give it a really good try, but the equipment just didn't want to work in boats, --Jim L, #958

[bogordoug]

In contrast to the report from Jim Linville, I have been sailing a Polk Tracker II for over a year now. No particular problems with the transmitter/receiver. It was just a cost/benefit decision. If you sail in various out of town regattas the requirements are now 3-5 sets of crystals or modules. Add ($20 to $50 per channel) to the basic cost of a transmitter/receiver combination and you are nearly at the level of the Polk Tracker II with 30 available channels.

It certainly makes the job of the RD easier when assigning people to a channel.

Service from Polk has been great so far. I did a dive job into my local lake several months ago. After the radio dried out...I thought I still had some problems....sent it off to Polk. They returned it saying no problems found with the radio and "no charge". That is good customer service.

There are some minor quirks to setting up the radio. I still need to have the manual at hand when setting it up. (To be honest, the manual needs a bit of work)

Battery usage is great. I have placed 1800 nimh battery in the radio and ran it for 8 straigh hours (22 races two weekends ago). Upon peaking the batteries I discovered I had used 1185 ma of power.

Range is great, although I haven't tested to see how far it does transmit. But it does control the boat as far as I can see in which direction the boat is pointing.

Still using the stock antenna. I haven't sought out a small flexable antenna like I had on my Futaba.

Has a built in countdown timer (only by minute) which can be set from 0 to 60 minutes. Wish it had a two minute timer build in with 10 second countdown. But that is a wish list.

If you are using this with a RMG winch you will need to set the wiring up with the two switch wiring option (See the RMG wiring diagrams). This allows you to toggle the receiver on/off rather than turning the transmitter on/off during setup. The radio does not turn on quickly...goes through some setup routines so setting the RMG setting can be tedious. However, the side benefit is you can set the end point adjustments in the radio and not worry about the RMG settings at all.

Changing the frequencies takes some time. This is not something that should be thought of as "Oh, I can change frequencies on a whim between races". Although with some forthought the transmitter holds setting for 99 models. Each model stores the frequency, so you would only need to reset the receiver between races. Can be done remotely, but it needs to be somewhat away from other boats/transmitters. Just like resetting an RMG winch.

Ergonomics. I have the Tracker II. It is somewhat boxy, but fits into my hands nicely. The channel to handle my jib trim is above the sail control on the left stick. I wish it were next to the rudder control for ease of use. New new verion (Tracker III) is somewhat rounder.

In the presence of a lot of other radios, when turning the Tracker II on it will sometimes get false positives of frequence conflicts on channels in the 72 mhz range (software bug). Not to worry thought. I just push in the antenna and walk away from the crowd. This is why I keep my radio on the entire day...even during lunch.

Now if they could keep the radio and receivers in stock. Otherwise this is all academic, but I'll not sell my Tracker II. I just put on my regatta entry forms "I am currently set to channel XX, but just let me know where you want me for the regatta"


Doug Hale

[greerdr]

I note one entrant in the Nationals is set up to use 2.4 G "Spektrum "system.I wonder if he was able to find a "two-stick" radio (756 JR?) or if he is using a pistol-grip.Wouldn't be nice to have all those freqs available at large regattas?

R.C.Greer

[bodacious]

If you guys read the post that Winston wrote a few days ago under "2.4ghz system" he tells what he is using. The Stick radios are for foreign consumption only but if you can find someone to export one to you ..you can buy the module and receiver and make the conversion!! I'm just not quite ready to drop $500 to get rid of my radios!! I did send an email to an English distributor but I haven't received a response yet....DB