JUMPER 18 PRO

[flyingdervish]

Hello everyone. Sorry about generic greeting. I was wondering if any of you out there have tried the jumper txs or own one. Jumper 16 or 18 is what I am looking at as a possible purchase. Price looks to be attractive and opentx desireable. I realize it's newer startup sort of. Let me know thoughts and comments as to ownership or useage of these txs. Trying to find out durability and services available. Haven't won any lotteries so I'm looking for value price durability triangle. Getting into rc all new equipment will nick the wallet. Than you for any responses. Hope your all getting some flying in with this hot weather. I'm just swelltering working on finishing home and garage. No flying or modelling for a while,boo hoo.

[Konrad]

Ok, first off the operating system OpenTX is fantastic! It is so much better than what has become the standard menu driven (Master/Slave) concept we are now use to with Futaba and Spektrum. The core is much like what we had with the great Multiplex Profi radios. That is all inputs go into a mixer the input is modified as you want then the output is sent to the RX.

Jumper has a lot of quality issues and these vary a lot by production run. The Jumper T16 was one such product. the Jumper 18 looks to be a bit of a rush job trying to get to market before the RadioMaster 16.  Of the Jumper products I've seen I don't like them. The 4in1 module was not properly FCC certified. Only one of the four RF band was submitted and then that was at a much lower power rating than what is shipped (I think like 1/10 the power output). Many contest directors and clubs will not allow the 4:1 modules to be used at their fields, insurance issues.

This goes for the 5 in 1 module for the Radiomaster.

I haven't seen a RadioMaster as of yet but the main guy* behind RadioMaster was with Jumper but he broke away for undisclosed reasons.

Both Jumper and Radiomaster owe a lot to FrSky. FrSky is annoyed with these clones and is positioning themselves to not support much the technology that these two radios use. There is a good chance that both the Jumper and Radiomaster will become obsolete should FrSky stop supporting the older protocols.

If wanting to use OpenTX I'd give FrSky a good look. Yes, they appear to be a bit more expensive (when compared to the junk from Jumper and Radiomaster) but they have a much more robust engineering support program**.

*I believe this man was also at FrSky early on.
** FrSky has major issues with releases that haven't been properly validated. Often new products don't work as advertised. FrSky does correct these issue but not until the early adopers (customers) have found the issues. This is a poor way to run an tech firm.

The short answer is don't buy them.

All the best,
Konrad

Disclaimer:
I fly fixed wing, mainly gliders (No drones/quads). I own 4 FrSky radios.