The company that makes the R-400 is about 25 miles from my house. I took my mini-10 receiver over and we made a comparsion between the 2 units. They were pretty close with the R-400 having a couple of extra benefits such as being multi frequency capabale. One draw back I could see is that the antenna is bulky and does not fold up. One of my friends has one and has used it out in the field. You can contact him and ask him for his advice. Brian Kellogg and his email is "bphawk@gte.net"
I am using one and many of the falconers close to me have switched to them as well. They are very good receivers that have multi-channel abilities. Like raptrlvr said, the antenna it it';s major flaw. One local guy simply attached the coax to a three element yagi and the problem was solved. I love it and you can't beat it for the money.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
Weasel, that's a great idea about the Yagi. I am pretty sure that something has been said about the antenna to the guy who makes the R-400. I think it would be rather easy to design the antenna to fold in half and that would pretty much solve the problem. The R-400 is pretty darn good for the $400 it cost. At one time the guy was giving $200 off the price if you traded in a 10 channel even if the 10 channel wasn't working.
Yea, You would think that he would re-design it. Unfortunatly, I can only see them raising the price to put of a folding yagi set up.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
To give an idea of how it can be used, a friend lost his falcon the other day and he had to rent a plane to go look for it the next day. They tracked it down 55 miles north of the place it was last seen. They used several different receivers including the R-400. The only thing they noted about it bad was that when next to high power lines, it would pick up static......Otherwise it worked great. They had yagi's strapped to the wings of the plane and attached throught the window to the receivers.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
I did the same thing with a prairie falcon a few years back. The small Cessna only cost me $35 for an hour of flying time. It was pretty cool to be looking down at the Redtails that were soaring right below us. I'm sure that it would be much more expensive now with the price of fuel.
Just got mine last week. Haven't needed it yet but now Scarlett hunts from a soar sometimes it's worth the money for piece of mind when you look up and your bird is 200 ft overhead. I'm going to order the three element yagi for it though. Kurt
You have to use of a yagi to get any kind of distance or directionability( I can't spell) check with Merlin systems for the reciver, also I highly recamend their 1/3N transmitter.
A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for the CHC praising the Merlin transmiiter. I have always had one or two in my falconry box . Ed {Merlin }gave me one of the 1/3N transmitters for writing the article. It is a 30 to 35 day transmitter that uses a large lithium battery. The only thing I can tell you is that you have to watch the battery life once you use it. I could be wrong on this, but, it seems that once you have used it, it continues to drain while it is in your box. A couple of times I bought a new battery {about $6} and put the transmitter on a new falcon and when I was done for the day, I put the battery in my box. The next time I went to use the battery{several weeks later} it was dead. Still, if you are flying a bird that you are concerned might take off, this will last continusely for about 35 days.
My apprentice just ordered the same transmitter the 1/3 N model. I am interested to see how well it performs. I have used both Marshall and L&L transmitters and so far I like the L&L models for there simplicity and price.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
