The label on the box tells us that this is the 'PROFI mc 3010' - the entry level set for the PRO- class! What you get is an 'mc3010' transmitter (with a 6 cell 1300mAh battery pack), a 'MINI- 9' PPM receiver, 4 'MS-X6' servos, a 4.8v 1300mAh battery pack and a switch harness. The switch cover incorporates the charging socket and there is a very neat sliding cover to keep out dirt. Charging leads are supplied for the transmitter and receiver packs. These are terminated with banana plugs (no charger). A full set of servo hardware is included and there is a choice of three different stick lengths. There is a thick instruction manual, written in excellent English with many illustrations.

The main reason that it is deemed to be an entry level set is that it is, in fact, a budget version of the 'PROFI mc3030' on which the transmitter has more switches (but still expandable), more model memories and a larger capacity battery.

There are a few puzzling things about the above, so let's dispense with those straight away.

The transmitter has 7 controls: 2 dual axis sticks (4 controls), 2 sliders and a three-way switch. The box tells us that it is convertible to 9 channels and all of the information in the manual suggests that it has only 7 channels, but there is a 9 channel receiver. The transmitter is capable of transmitting on one of three modes (this actually means types of modulation): PPM7, PPM9 and PCM. Careful study of the manual reveals that the receiver supplied needs PCM9 mode. This tends to the theory that the transmitter has 9 channels of which only 7 are used. The only support for this theory in the manual is that one program 'RC1/F3A' does show 8 servo outlets being used. No information is given on the 9 channel 'conversion'.

Unlike previous Multiplex receivers, the 'MINI-9' has Futaba type sockets (a total of 10 at the end of the case. This tells us that the company is listening to their customers and giving them what they want, doesn't it? Then why do the servos have JR type plugs? Now these will fit quite happily into the receiver sockets, but there is no polarisation, so they can go in either way round. There is a small diagram on the receiver label which helps here, but only if you know that the signal lead (what's that?) is orange.

The actual manufacturer of the servos is not clear. All the hardware is similar to JR types, but the cases resemble Futaba. I did suspect that they might be Hitec, until I tried them. More on that anon.

It's worth pointing out here that Futaba plugs are actually wider than the JR type and fitting a JR plug into a Futaba socket leaves it rather lacking in support. Yes, I know that there are people who cut the key off Futaba plugs and fit them into JR sockets. Please don't.

The receiver battery pack is, at 1300mAh, substantially larger than is normally supplied, particularly with just four standard servos. This size of pack would only be used when using coreless servos, or when used in a helicopter with a mechanical gyro.

There is a label on the back of the transmitter which says, "Channel-Check". There is another on the RF Module. The only clue to what this meant came from some promotional literature which was included in the box. Apparently, this is an optional device which 'plugs into the RF module' and monitors your frequency. If it is clear your get a green 'OK' light. If there is a signal on it you get a red 'Don't fly' light.

This sounds like a wonderful idea. The only problem being that there isn't one supplied and that there is no socket on the module to accommodate it. I suspect that they mean that it is plugged in instead of the module. Considering that you have to take the transmitter apart to get to the module, I'm having second thoughts.

This is quite large, but also fairly slim which makes it quite comfortable to hold. It is fully programmable, and has 30 model memories. We've already noted that it has a 6 cell 1300mAh battery and this gives a life of about 5 hours.

In unexpanded form, as supplied for review, the transmitter has a 3 position switch, 4 sliders and a rotary knob in addition to the usual two sticks, with trims, and an on/off switch. This on/off switch is flush mounted on the upper left edge of the case and has an LED adjacent to it to indicate that it is in the 'on' position. This glows green if all is well, but red if the RF module is removed. The trims are linear sliders and do not have the usual semi-rotary action.

A large Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) is set into an angled panel in the centre of the top edge of the front panel. This, together with 8 pushbuttons concealed under a hinged panel at the bottom of the front panel, allow all of the various control functions to be programmed. More on this after completing the description.

Above the display is the aerial, which is fully adjustable for angle via a ball joint at the base. The position can then be locked by tightening a single screw.

What appears to be 4 slider controls actually consists of 2 controls with separate indicators immediately adjacent to, and inside, them. These indicators have a far stiffer ratchet than the actual control slider and the idea is that you can use them to indicate some preset control position which can be identified by feel rather than having to look at the transmitter.

Mounted above the right hand stick unit there is a single short toggled three position switch labelled 'G' which is primarily intended as a 'gear' or 'retract' switch.

Finally, there is a rotary control knob which is adjacent to the switch labelled 'G' This may all sound a little long winded but it is necessary to establish the actual layout because of the unique nature of this particular unit. In fact, all of the controls (apart from the on/off switch) so far described can be configured to serve any purpose you may require. To this end, the stick functions are labelled 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D' and the two sliders 'E' and 'F'.

The upper front corners of the case are fitted with removable panels, each of which can accommodate up to 6 switches or rotary controls. Two spare panels are supplied, which allows you to change the existing layout and/or add extra controls.

As supplied these positions are filled by panels which have just the 3 position switch and rotary control as already mentioned and blanked off holes for three rate switches and two additional switches. These blanked off holes are suitably labelled for these additional functions.

The back of the case contains a clip in holder for the aerial and a useful folding handle. By pressing two pushbuttons at the top of the case, the rear cover can be easily removed to reveal the plug-in RF module. All of the controls plug into the circuit board and there are ample spaces for additional controls. As mentioned above, three different length sticks are available which are simply pushed on and turned to lock them in place. An optional extra is a stick end with a built-in switch.

At the top of the left hand side panel there is a multi-pin socket. This is used for charging, a direct servo connection (lead not supplied), and the pupil/buddy box connection. It can also be used to transfer programs between transmitters.

A neck strap attachment is located between those slider controls. This is positioned so that the transmitter hangs with the aerial inclined downwards (nose heavy?). Although this is a matter of taste, the writer much prefers this to having the aerial tend to end up pointing over his shoulder.

As supplied, all of the stick axis are spring-loaded to the centre. Instructions are supplied explaining how to remove the spring to give a smooth positionable throttle control, or how to activate a ratchet. However, nowhere is the manual is there any mention of stick mode (the word 'mode' is used for the type of modulation). Obviously, as all of the sticks can be assigned, you can have any mode you want. But that does rather assume that you know about these things.

As a matter of interest, all of the sample programs supplied within the transmitter had the rudder control on the right stick and the aileron control on the left stick. Offhand, I can't think of anyone I know who flies that way.

Mentioned in the manual, but not supplied, is a 'reserve battery' installation. This utilises an additional, smaller capacity, battery mounted inside the case. When the low battery warning (did we mention that?) goes off, you can manually switch to the reserve battery, via one of the (additional) switches. While this system is in operation, the power LED flashes continuously.

Note that the only indication that the transmitter is actually transmitting is that green LED.

The receiver is small and compact and housed in a substantial case secured by 4 screws. All of the servo and battery sockets (Futaba type) are at one end and the plug-in crystal and aerial are at the other. A crystal with a thick clear plastic cover is used in common with many European sets.

If you turn on the receiver without first turning on the transmitter, all of the servos will begin to move erratically over their full range of movement.

The servos are what we have now come to regard as 'standard' size. In other words, they are the same size as Futaba 148's or JR 517's. The plugs and hardware are all JR type. Investigation revealed that they have substantial nylon gears with two hefty plain metal bushes which are clearly designed to be replaced by ball-races, if required. None of the internal wiring is secured in any way.

Why did I investigate? Because, apart from being quite slow, they are undoubtedly the noisiest servos I have ever encountered!

Your editor commented on the fact that the plug and socket between the battery and the switch harness was different to, and larger than, all the others. This is as it should be. That one connector carries all of the current to the whole system and needs to be of good quality.

It also ensures that you cannot operate the equipment by plugging the battery directly into the receiver. This is never a good idea, particularly if it is possible to plug it in the wrong way.

'Setting up' rather than 'programming' because, if you are starting from scratch, you have to set it up before it will do anything. In other words, there are no default levels! If you don't set it up, it won't do anything. As supplied, there are some sample programs available in certain memories, which you can use, or modify, as required. Each of these is fully described in the manual, but some of the finer points may not be immediately obvious if you are not familiar with the end result, and some of them utilise channel mixing which might not be immediately obvious.

All of this is explained in a fairly comprehensive instruction manual, with diagrams of the LCD at each stage, but you have a lot to learn before you can really get to grips with setting up a given model and this takes time. I would seriously recommend that you read it right through first and then sit down with a fully charged transmitter and work through the examples set out.

The LCD has 2 lines of 16 characters. By accessing various menus, this can be used to show a tremendous amount of information. When first switched on it presents a status display as follows:

Model number (01-30 + Fx)/Model name (up to 8 characters)/PCM, PPM7 or PPM9/Transmitter battery voltage (digital)/Transmitter voltage (analog) Not bad for 32 characters! I particularly like the bargraph type analog voltage display in addition to the digital value. According to the manual, this display should also show the operating time, but it doesn't.

All this is accessed via 8 pushbuttons as previously mentioned. These include two buttons ('M' and 'R'), which get you into and out of the menus, two buttons ('+' and '-') to increment the values up and down and four buttons which 'point' to the feature of the menu that you require. An arrow on the display duplicates the direction arrows embossed on these four buttons.

In common with many other programmable transmitters, the mc3030 expresses throws, etc as percentages and these are changed by means of '+' and '-' buttons to increment the value. Many of these can be changed much more quickly by using the rotary control knob which 'clicks' from one value to another. The real bonus of this idea is that you can easily change a value while the model is in flight because you don't have to find the appropriate button, or look at the display. This is very useful, other manufacturers please copy!

Well, just about anything if you are willing to find out how.

Unless you have already programmed it or are using one of the sample programs, it will do absolutely nothing, so you have to follow a system. The manual is very good, but it tells you how to program it rather than how to set up a model.

First of all, you have to tell the system what each and every control has to do. Then you tell it how much throw you want and in which direction. It still won't work until you tell it which servo is to be operated by each control. Having got that far you should have a good understanding of the basic system, but you will not even have scratched the surface of what it can do!

Like many modern sets it can be used to operate all types of aircraft and helicopters. There are 13 ready defined mixers available, catering for all the usual aircraft and helicopter mixing requirements. There are also a number (don't ask me how many - there are a lot) of user definable mixers which can have up to 10 inputs. As an example of what this can do you could use one to control the elevators and have inputs from the flaps to retrim when the flaps are lowered, input from the rudder to correct for nose up or down effects when the rudder is applied in knife edge, input from the throttle to correct for power on/off trim changes and then add in a fixed value to give more up for spins, etc!

One thing you must do is to do it's thinking for it. As an example, if you are using the equipment to fly a helicopter, you must remember to assign the tailrotor control to 'Yaw', not 'Rudder'. The system then knows that it has to include both the input from the rudder stick and some input from the pitch channel (ATS) and will request the values for both inputs. If you want more than this, to centre the tail rotor when operating the throttle hold for instance, then you must use a user-defined mixer and feed in a preset value to move the tail.

This basic system is used for many features. In helicopter use you must call aileron 'Roll' and elevator is 'Pitch'. There are numerous other functions to which a control can be assigned, including use with powered aircraft, gliders, helicopters or boats. These are simply too numerous to list here.

In addition to this there is another long list of functions to which the servos can be assigned.

All of the usual facilities are included such as dual rates, exponential throw, servo reversing, stop watch, integrated timer, model name, copying from one memory to another, offset trim, etc. The stop watch function can be started or stopped by means of a switch, or set to operate at a preset point on one of the sticks. As an example of this, it could be used to check the motor run time on an electric powered model. All this plus training facilities (buddy box), direct servo control (closed loop operation), CCPM and Heim mixing for helicopters,

We have noted that the system has 30 model memories. Actually, it has 31. This additional memory is identified as 'Fx' and is a copy of the last model memory that was modified in any way. This means that if you changed something and didn't like it, you copy the 'Fx' memory back into the one that you changed and everything is as it was.

One useful feature is a 'checktrim' facility which is automatically called up if you have changed the model number (it can be accessed when the model has not been changed) which gives a visual indication if the trim levers have been moved since that model was last used. You are shown which way the levers must be moved to get back to the correct position and there is an indication when the correct position is reached.

What is not immediately apparent is that any switch can be assigned to any function and one switch can control as many functions as you like. Add to this the fact that you can have up to 12 switches and the possibilities are endless. Provision is also made for the addition of a 'Combi' switch. Although this is a common feature of most European radios, it is little known in the rest of the world. It's main purpose is to allow easy coupling/uncoupling of the aileron and rudder controls.

Another useful possibility is that you can switch between 3 different memories in flight by operating a single switch. This switch is an optional extra and there are certain conditions attached to it's use. The memories concerned must be consecutive and must be named in an appropriate manner, such as 'Heli1', 'Heli2' and 'Heli3'. By this means you can radically change the nature of the model, such as setting up a glider for speed or distance tasks or flying a helicopter inverted. You can use it for simply changing the trim, but there are easier ways of doing that without using up 2 more memories.

This is merely scratching the surface and I apologise to those readers who would have liked more details. A proper in-depth review would entail using the system for some considerable time and then writing several articles. Unfortunately, the unit was only available for a limited time.

There is so much to this set (well, to the transmitter, anyway) that a cohesive description of all it can do would probably need more words than there are in the manual. Below is a list of the main features:

Pre-defined mixers The built-in mixers mentioned above are: Fixed wing - 'Elevator+', 'V-Tail', 'V-Tail+', 'Crow', 'Snap Flap', 'Quadro' and 'Delta'. Helicopters - 'Tail Rotor', 'Heim Head', 'Head Mix', 'Dynamic Throttle' and 'Flare'. Pre-programmed models Gliders - 'Fiesta', 'Salto', 'F3B' and 'Cortina'. Powered models - 'Big Lift', RC1/F3A' and 'Mirage'. Helicopters - 'Heliboy', 'Ranger' and 'BK-117'.

In many ways an intriguing - and to some, intimidating - system. It must be said that it is not exactly what might be described as 'user- friendly' and there is a lot to be learned to get the best out of it. However, there is a lot of best to be got - if you see what I mean.

It is certainly teutonic in character (spelled S-O-L-I-D) and will appeal to many for its individuality in a world where all radios tend to look the same.

It is worth repeating here that you cannot just switch on your new set and use it to operate a model; you must put some work into it first. Likewise, you cannot just select 'Glider' or 'Helicopter' and then set it up to suit your particular model.

To the dedicated contest flyer, it is not up to the standards of ease of operation that we have come to expect - but it has many compensations. It should last forever and the performance of the radio link is first class. It certainly suffers from trying to be all things to all men within an affordable price range, but so do all of it's competitors.