FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION

[aburn09]

I've been flying for over 20 years mainly building and flying helicopters and for the last four years I have moved across to building and flying 5 inch and now recently 2 inch quads.........When I started flying Spektrum radios were pretty much the market leader so I bought a DX7 and three years ago as I needed more channels for my custom built Airwolf helicopter so I then bought the Spektrum DX9.
I've been having a few issues recently with the DX9 with my quads and am now seriously thinking of buying the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION as they are alot more quad friendly than the Spektrum radios but I do have a couple of questions for the FRSKY users here
1. https://www.quadcopters.co.uk/frsky-taranis-x9d-plus-special-edition-3327
This is where I was going to buy it from as it's in the UK so it's not the cheapest as Hobbyking and Banggood do sell it slightly cheaper but there is always the risk of a customs charge on top of that buying from abroad and if there's a problem a UK supplier 'should' be easier to deal with.
2. https://hobbyking.com/en_us/frsky-xm-plus-micro-ultra-light-16-channel-full-range-s-bus-receiver-standard-version.html
Is this the ideal rx to buy or is there something better I should be looking at......i also noticed reading a few posts here and there you have to match a European tx to a European rx otherwise they won't talk to each other ?
3. Finally for now binding........At present I set the binding processs up on betaflight through the cli tab for my Spektrum rx's.....I believe you press the binding button on a powered up rx then holding the binding button on the FRSKY tx before turning it on then binds the two ? Is that correct ?
I'm sure if I buy the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION
I will have a few more questions before I get to fly but for now any advice on the above is appreciated

[hoverfly]

Binding is a piece of cake. Set t/x in bind mode ,takes a few button pushes, press button on the  r/x and power up.
Remove power  and turn off bind mode on t/x ...job done..

[Stactix]

I've been flying for over 20 years mainly building and flying helicopters and for the last four years I have moved across to building and flying 5 inch and now recently 2 inch quads.........When I started flying Spektrum radios were pretty much the market leader so I bought a DX7 and three years ago as I needed more channels for my custom built Airwolf helicopter so I then bought the Spektrum DX9.
I've been having a few issues recently with the DX9 with my quads and am now seriously thinking of buying the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION as they are alot more quad friendly than the Spektrum radios but I do have a couple of questions for the FRSKY users here
1. https://www.quadcopters.co.uk/frsky-taranis-x9d-plus-special-edition-3327
This is where I was going to buy it from as it's in the UK so it's not the cheapest as Hobbyking and Banggood do sell it slightly cheaper but there is always the risk of a customs charge on top of that buying from abroad and if there's a problem a UK supplier 'should' be easier to deal with.
2. https://hobbyking.com/en_us/frsky-xm-plus-micro-ultra-light-16-channel-full-range-s-bus-receiver-standard-version.html
Is this the ideal rx to buy or is there something better I should be looking at......i also noticed reading a few posts here and there you have to match a European tx to a European rx otherwise they won't talk to each other ?
3. Finally for now binding........At present I set the binding processs up on betaflight through the cli tab for my Spektrum rx's.....I believe you press the binding button on a powered up rx then holding the binding button on the FRSKY tx before turning it on then binds the two ? Is that correct ?
I'm sure if I buy the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION
I will have a few more questions before I get to fly but for now any advice on the above is appreciated

Yes, Quadcopters / Hobbyrc are both very good. No issues with either so far.

Yeap that one's pretty good, as is the RXSR.
And yes, either EU to EU or international to international. I found this out when I brought my taranis SE (brought from banggood) Int version, while my recievers I brought from Hobby rc so EU, didn't take too long to put the EU firmware on the taranis.

With binding, on the SE you can turn 'bind on' when you go into that models settings. It'll then beep until you turn it off.
So turn on bind within model settings, plug in bat with finger on reciever button. turn off bind / taranis pull out battery, turn both on should be good to go!

[Two-Six]

You might also want to consider these guys, I have bought all my FRsky stuff from them:
https://www.t9hobbysport.com/frsky-taranis-x9d-plus-special-edition
They are very good and all the FRSKY things they sell will have EU LBT firmware.

This TX is supposed to be pretty good as well, it uses OpenTX just like the Taranis:
https://www.t9hobbysport.com/frsky-taranis-q-x7s

Don't worry too much about incompatible firmware you can easily flash the RX and TX.  In fact you will probably have to re-flash the TX as the Taranis and the QX7 usually comes with an FRSKY version of OpenTX which won't support a lot of the new features that you can have with OpenTX like being able to use a multi-protocol module for example.

I do like those special edition cases, I like the Rock Monster one.

These radios are really great, once you have one you will never go back to another kind of radio, they can do anything you want them to do, anything.  Amazing.

[aburn09]

Thanks for the replies so far.........I am reading the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION does seem to have range issues on some forums I've been reading if when changing the tx antenna over you touch the rp sms pin on the tx it earth's it and basically ruins your flight range !!......If that is right then I am concerned as that's a major flaw which inadvertently might happen at some point......Whereas my Spektrum DX9 has two diversity built in antennas one in the handel and the other in the normal place out of the top of the tx which can't be undone hence no chance of reducing the flight range although that is somewhat of the problem I have with my Spektrum DX9 a range issue which would be pointless buying the FRSKY TARANIS X9D PLUS SPECIAL EDITION only to have the same or worse range than I have right now ?

[ched]

Do they mean if you touch the outer metal part of the sma you will ground it and reduce your range only when you are touching it or forever after? I think it's just while you are touching it.

You could get the standard edition and change the gmimbals to the hall effect ones?

The Taranis is so popular there are masses of people here and huge amounts of youtube vids that should make setup very easy.

[mo_miah]

the range issue you mention is not a Frsky thing, its a design (flaw) of the SMA/RP-SMA connectors
the pin on the SMA connector has a finite number of mating cycles (about 500) you also need to correctly torque the connector too
if you keep removing the antenna the pin wears out leading to a poor connection and thus poor signal
with the special edition taranis they come with a case where you can keep the antenna on all the time and it will be protected so you dont need to keep removing the antenna when you pack everything away

the other issue was people carrying out the Mr Steele 5db mod on the regular x9d and doing it incorrectly and that leads to poor signal, the x9d SE has the mod done at the factory so you can change between the regular antenna and the highr gain 5db antenna without an issue, again bare in mind the SMA connector only has 500 mating cycles so pick an antenna and stick to it, don't change antennas everyday otherwise you will wear out the connector faster

if for whatever reason you do damage the antenna connector they can be replaced and the 500 count starts again