FrSky Taranis X9D Plus 2019 ACCST D16/Open TX Access Telemetry Radio for FPV Transmitter

I have been a FrSky fan for over a decade, but this product has been cost-cut too far. It does not come with a battery, nor does it come with a DC wall adapter. Further the decision to move the charging port from the side to the rear (via the USB port) is a terrible idea...because now you have to take the transmitter out of the case to charge. These changes for the 2019 version are a terrible set of decisions on their part, IMHO. Now is the time to jump to a different manufacturer (which is sad because I used to highly recommend). Argh.

Not for newbies, alot of functionality, takes time to get used to all the features, but it works well

Update on 2 Sep 2020 - The battery is finally here. There is conflicting information on where to plug it in and which connector goes where. The documentation is simply not there. Still haven't powered the unit on. Looks like I need to either do hours of research or send the silly thing back. Follow-up - The battery connector is for the 3 lead battery charging cable (2S). The main power leads of the battery do NOT connect to anything. It sure would have been nice to know that in the very beginning. All that said, OpenTX is pretty sweet. You can use Lua to do whatever you want with this thing. Now that it's FINALLY running, it appears to be quite a nice radio. But what a chore.

This is an incredible (5 star) transmitter. It runs open source software (opentx or edgetx as shown in the photo), which have active communities, and the ability to fix anything you want. I'm running edgetx 2.6.0, which is really nice. The edgetx companion application for the PC is also available for linux (even Fedora), which is a big plus for me. Unfortunately it is a royal pain to get running, first because it comes unflashed - you have to get it into bootloader mode, plug it into a computer, and use the companion application to download and flash the radio's firmware. Then you have to boot the radio with the new firmware and flash the same firmware again from an SD card, so that the eeprom and bootloader get updated. Minus 1 star for shipping the radio without working firmware. Frsky, there's no excuse for this. Secondly, none of this is documented. The included "manual" does explain how to reach all the menus once the radio is loaded and running, but says nothing about how to get the radio running in the first place. Particularly frustrating is the lack of any documentation on how to turn the radio on (press and hold the power button for 4 seconds, until the radio vibrates), but even this does not work until the radio is flashed. The completely undocumented way to get the unflashed radio turned on and into bootloader mode is to 1. Plug in a charged battery, 2. hold the two horizontal trim switches toward the center, 3. Press the power button briefly TWICE. (I found this described correctly in only one posting). Then you plug the radio into USB on your computer and flash it with companion. Minus 1 star for terrible documentation. So I'm torn. Now that it's working, I really like it. Just be prepared for firmware fun and a big learning curve.

Would have been great to know it doesn't come with a battery or receiver. No SD card is understandable. I'd give no stars if that was an option. Most disappointing gift purchase I've done. It's like giving someone a new smartphone for their birthday that doesn't come with a battery and not compatible with their carrier. But don't worry, it has a charge so when you buy the battery you'll be set. Kick rocks