I'm building an underwater robot with various sensors and other features. The number of controls (channels) I'll need (in the 40 Mhz band,) is quite a lot more than is normally available in a set commercially.
There are obviously a number of options here:
a) buy a commercial radio control set and modify ('hack') it to take the extra channels (in practice, maybe just using the transmitter portion);
b) find an electronics self build rc kit/design and adapt that;
c) find ready made tx/rx 40 MHz modules and use those as the basis for the design.
Note that I have fair electronics knowledge but to save time and effort and not to reinvent the wheel (also to ensure a legal radio setup) I'd rather invest in a soundly designed tx.
As another issue, it would be very handy to have a bidirectional link, that is, receive sensor and other data back from the robot, again, in the model 40 MHz band.
It's a long time since I have played with model rc, so I don't know the market for this kind of stuff very well. I've found some gear in the 2.4 GHz band range, but this is unsuitable for underwater reception.
Has anyone experience in this area, know a business that offers self build 40 MHz radio kits or have any other helpful pointers?