What? No more Spektrum?!

[doctormike]

Did I miss something? MRC doesn't carry Spektrum Tx's any more? Did they have a falling out with HH? WOW! Doc

[Tom]

We're working on it but there is a 99% chance we will never carry Spektrum, E-flite, or anything from Horizon again. I was told by an employee of Horizon Hobby that they see Motion RC as competition which is mind boggling to me because they are 30x our size. I was also told they don't feel Motion RC adds value as a dealer of Horizon products. I can't give specifics but I'll say that Horizon made it difficult if not impossible for Motion RC to continue to sell Horizon products at a profit. I suspect the same thing will happen to other dealers if it has not happened already. As an RC enthusiast, I like Spektrum and E-Flite and I would love to keep their products at Motion RC. As a business owner, we'd be out of business if we continue to carry their products. Potentially following the same story line, we found out that Horizon recently went to a factory we've done business with for a few years and threatened to pull their business if the factory continued to sell to Motion RC. I'm all for competition but I'm for fair and ethical competition.

We'll offer Futaba as a good alternative to Spektrum radios, and we currently offer Admiral receivers which are compatible with Spektrum radios. If anything, this may be a silver lining to offer more and better alternatives. We will continue to innovate with new products and we will continue to offer all our customers the customer service we are known for. I love this hobby and I know everyone here feels the same. I sincerely appreciate all the business this community has given to us, and I hope you all will continue to support Motion RC.

[fhhuber]

Sounds like I won't be buying from Horizon.

I can get the aftermarket RXs to go with my Spektrum TX. I have enough of the "real" Spektrum RXs already.

Tower thought they could force other companies into submission.. they went broke.

[doctormike]

I have a few E-Flite planes and a Spektrum Tx. It's going to be REAL hard to go to those jerks for parts! Unbelievable!!!! Doc

[Twowingtj]

Thanks for your insights Tom. A former hobby shop owner, that's a friend, has also said that HH makes thing really tough on distributors.

I'm sure that the great folks at Motion RC will soon find creative ways to fill in the gaps. Ethics, quality, and customer support will always get my business before "the empire".

[skippykix]

Hey Tom, Will you guys still sell FMS products? I really hate to hear how Horizon is treating others in this hobby but you can kind of see it in how they treat people at flying events.

[Bajora]

As long as MRC continues their relationship with Freewing, with the output of that being a steady stream of exciting FlightLineRC prop planes and Freewing jets ... I don't think not selling Spektrum or HH products will really affect MRC?

For HH to think that making it cost prohibitive for MRC to carry their products will "solve" MRC continuing to evolve into a serious etailer and a force to be reckoned with is arrogant IMO. I wouldn't think the majority of folks go to the MRC website to grab HH products? They go there for all of the cool Freewing jets and FRC airplanes. My .02

[skippykix]

Totally agree. My only issue with MRC is they have so many really cool and quality products that my wallet “SCREAMS” every time they come out with a new plane. I have to go out to my shop and figure out what to get rid of to make room for the new stuff. If anyone hasn’t said it lately “THANK YOU” to the crew of MRC. You guys have set the customer service bar really high and I look forward to being one of many loyal MRC customers for a long time.

[farmflyer]

The only issue I see with this situation is that MotioRc will have to reproduce some of the good old standard airframes in the more popular slightly smaller sizes or they will start to loose some business. Everyone can’t afford big planes with big prices that use big expensive batteries and that require big vehicles to transport them and big places to fly them. I too love the new products that they are producing even though I can’t afford them but if Motion keeps veering away from what got them where they are now what will they look like in the future with a hand full of big prop planes and big EDF’s and totally isolated from everything else?

[boomer108]

I bought from Tower Hobbies before Motion came on the scene and still do occasionally, but Motion gets 99% of my business. I have never bought from HH and never will especially with their business ethics.

[doctormike]

MRC...You are the BEST! Hang in there!!!!! Doc

[mr.frankenjet]

Disappointing news for sure. Thanks Motion, keep up the good work. The spectrum stuff is nice but not perfect , ethics will tip the scale here. You guys have pushed the hobby in such a great direction, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

[AirHead]

As the "Big Fish" eat up the smaller fish, the big fish usually commit one of the 7 Deadly Sins known as "gluttony". That act, creates arrogance and leads to other deadly sins and before you know it, nobody buys anything and nobody cares about the heartless, aggrandizing, bloated and spoiled companies that swell into faceless corporations that only see dollars and lose their connection to the real thing, which is the hobby in this case!!! They will learn their lesson when the bottom drops out and they lose all the wind from their sales! Consumers can effectively "steer" the marketplace if they choose to do so. I don't wish anyone any "ill will", but maybe the Sun will set on Horizon and they will go dark and Motion will set it's wheels in motion and roll over the rubble of what once was!!.....

[Woodcock]

I can see it. Frankly I'm certain your Admiral stability receivers have hit them pretty hard. I just bet it has very seriously effected their sales of Spektrum radio receivers. Bottom line the Admirals allow us to set virtually any plane up with a bail out. Motion has kind of busted there chops here for sure. As well as Lemon, but Motion made it much much simpler for us to implement this sort of stuff. A really big thing for Horizon is the whole AS3X thing in their bind and fly models. Horizon wants to own this sort of thing. They want everyone to know that their models are easier to fly than anyone else. The whole Admiral stability kinda craps all over that. With the Admiral radios we can make any ole model fly as good or better than there AS3X offerings. Yea their pissed. LOL

Other thing?? Can you say, "CORSAIR"! Horizon sells about 10 different verity's of Corsairs. Once again Motion gives them five knuckles square to the puss. You seriously didn't think it would piss them off. LOL Good job! I hate Horizon! They recently came up with that new V900 to compete with HK's EFxtra, their having a hard time giving them away! HK continues to bury their foots in Horizons V900 arses. They probably should have took a good long look before challenging that turf.

I do have a bit of feed back here though. You might consider replacing the Spektrum line radios with Graupner. I'm thinking about getting one. It does pretty much everything better than a Specktrum radios. Spektrums are great radios I"M NOT KNOCKING THEM, I FLY ONE!! But the two things that really jump out at me about Graupner are this. They have color touch screen programming with a stylist. This means not having to scroll thru all those damn menu items to find one. I like the sound of that. Another one that is big to me at least. You can access and program all the functions of the gyro receivers with the transmitter. Ya don't need to buy extra cables, and software. Then spend days getting it to work. Then once you do get it set up, getting out the field and realized you need to make an adjustment and have forgotten your cable, or notebook computer. Just a thought for you to consider. Ya know what, I actually think Graupner would really love to have Motion too. FRsky is great, Graupner is just simpler that's all. I personally think the world needs to be a little simpler.

Me

[OV10]

So I went to the Graupner site after your rousing referral Woody to check them out.
To be honest................can't get that excited about ditchin my Spektrum DX9 for an equiv 9 or possibly 12 chan Graupner because their Rx's are in the same wacked out price range as the Spek Rx's.
And most likely those Rx's (just like Futabas) don't have an aftermarket clone like the Lemon's that are available for Spektrum. I jumped off that $100+ per Rx ride years ago for Lemons and now Admiral.
For every 4 planes that a 6-10 chan Lemon goes on, the money saved by not using Spek Rx's is enough to buy another plane.:Cool:
Now if you or someone can tell me that Graupner has a Rx clone on the market that has time test reliability then I would be interested;)

[icepirate3]

When I decided to go back to Spektrum my first stop was MRC and saw that most of what I wanted was out of stock. I got a good deal on an iX12 off of Ebay in the end but would have much rather given MRC my business to be honest. As said before, this could be a really good opportunity to carry a brand like Graupner.


For what it's worth, I picked up a Graupner MZ-24 Pro last year. The gimbals are very nice and the radio feels very well built. I still think they are some of the best looking radios on the market but I know some don't really care about looks. The screen is very nice and responds well to finger or stylist inputs. It comes with a very nice case as well. The similar case for the iX12 is $80 I believe and the Graupner is a bit larger.

Programming can be a challenge. They use different terminology in their mixes and other things that can be confusing at first. I really struggled with getting the timers to work how I wanted but there are a lot of options to get through. There are only a handful of voice options but most normal options are there i.e. Gear Up/Down..... If you are a pincher with thick fingers the space between the top switches is pretty tight but this was fixed on the MZ-32 I believe.

Regardless of what happens in the near future MRC will still be the first place I shop.

[RCjetdude]

Horizon just lost any an all my business. Shame.

[Woodcock]

So I went to the Graupner site after your rousing referral Woody to check them out.
To be honest................can't get that excited about ditchin my Spektrum DX9 for an equiv 9 or possibly 12 chan Graupner because their Rx's are in the same wacked out price range as the Spek Rx's.
And most likely those Rx's (just like Futabas) don't have an aftermarket clone like the Lemon's that are available for Spektrum. I jumped off that $100+ per Rx ride years ago for Lemons and now Admiral.
For every 4 planes that a 6-10 chan Lemon goes on, the money saved by not using Spek Rx's is enough to buy another plane.:Cool:
Now if you or someone can tell me that Graupner has a Rx clone on the market that has time test reliability then I would be interested;)

I will not be replacing my Spektrum anytime soon Charlie. I love the fact I cant get stability receivers for 29 bucks. I have about 3 brand new ones in the box in my desk awaiting new planes. Nor am
I advocating anyone change.

What I am saying is Motion has a big hole where this stuff use to be. This could be a way to fill it. With, what I think looks like a quality product, that may be looking for a good store front. Simple as that.
Now I may in fact get one of these. But that's me & me alone.

Best Regards
Woody

[JamesonC]

Really sad that HH feels the need to try to be a bully in this industry. I had already been slowing down my spending with them lately for other reasons but seeing this will certainly stop all spending with them besides absolute necessities to repair existing planes.

From the way HH and FMS have been working together lately, I am gonna assume the factory HH threatened was FMS. I hope I am wrong but that is my guess.

[F106DeltaDart]

Its disappointing to hear that Horizon has decided to go down this path, I really hoped they were better than that. Losing spektrum, FMS, and eflite, would really hurt. I'll still pick up some stuff from HH on occasion, but this drastically reduces my interest in spending my money with them. I'll still stick with AR9020Ts for my big scale helis, but everything else is already running lemon/admiral rxs.