Hello everyone,
I have an MA010 I modified to AD-Band. It always twitched and glitched and had crappy radio-range, and I just thought it was due to radio interference in my home. But now I am thinking there might be more to it than that.
I have another AD-Band car but this one is an MR02. I just finished rebuilding it with a new chassis, so I gave it a spin. It runs Leaps-And-Bounds-Better than my AD-MA010. I even did a head-to-head comparison using the same crystals, batteries, everything. The AD-MR02 has full range on my track; My AD-MA010 falls out-of-range after less than 10ft and goes 100% out of control, until I approach the car within range again and the car receives my radio's signal (I use a Helios). So I'm thinking it's not just a glitch issue but a also a range issue.
I have tried five different antennas on the AD-MA010: The stock antenna; an Atomic metal antenna (The old style one); an Atomic hobby-style antenna (The one with a hobby-grade signal wire inside of a colored Atomic antenna tube), a piece of CAT-5 cable approx. 30cm (solid kind, not stranded CAT-5), directly-soldered to the PCB; and finally a long 45cm piece of hobby-grade Rx cable, also direct-soldered to the PCB and propped-up using heat-shrink and a stock antenna. Nothing improved signal reception.
I am wondering if there is maybe a capacitor or resistor or some component on the main board that is blown-out, which is causing the short-range? I remember radio reception range-issues would happen with old Xmods sometimes and a new resistor or something could be replaced which helped resolve the signal & radio/range issues. Anybody got any ideas? I have put some $$$ intot his board by having a 2x3 SP8M4 Fet stack put on it by a pro-electronics guy I know, and also had the I.C.S. plug modified for the MA010 chassis, as well as other AWD-specific modifications. I'd like to keep driving this car a while longer before retiring it.
Hopefully somebody can help
Thank you in advance!