Vintage Radio Teardown

by rchacker | June 20, 2014 | (7) Posted in Just Fun

 

A vintage radio teardown: Futaba AM Conquest FP-4NL
 
I love old electronics, it is great to see how things were made and how well they were made as well.
My father was given this old radio along with a pile of vintage rc planes and parts. The hardware is still quite usable and it is pretty easy to hack and convert into a 2.4G or 433MHz system.
 
With the popularity of 2.4 and 433 it may just be the case that these systems become quite reliable given that the 72MHz spectrum was reserved and most probably still is just used for RC aircraft.
 
Below are links to the manual and the datasheet of the only integrated circuits that are in the system. The OKI 9362 is in the transmitter and converts four analog signals into a CPPM signal and I assume the one in the receiver is the OKI 9362 which decodes the signal into four servo signals.

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COMMENTS

donnyb on June 23, 2014
I had one similar to that. I was wondering how far the actual signal could go on a 72 mhz. Especially with a thick canopy of trees. Every now and then I see them in hobby shops and I had wondered if they would be worth buying for fpv? That's a great video, and you can see how much technology had come. By the way, I think I spent about $150 for a used one 20+ years ago.
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Tonloc76 on June 24, 2014
I still have a few of those AM beasts and FM in fact my 72 FM optic 6 just died because I tries to use lipo in it for a battery :/ left me looking for a new radio. maybe someday ill get one of those new fange 2.4 systems
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Vintage Radio Teardown