Simply put, the transmitter is the part that you keep with you. A quick look at any transmitter will help you understand the difference between remote control and radio control right away. Remote controlled toys have a wire between the transmitter and the toy. Radio control systems are always wireless.

Transmitters send their commands to your toy using radio signals. As you may know, signals have certain frequencies. The vast majority of RC toys operate at either 27 Mhz or 49 Mhz. Why have more than one frequency? Think about it for a minute. What would happen if two people wanted to race vehicles that operated on the same frequency? Toys and transmitters don’t pair up like your Bluetooth stuff; they just send and receive in all directions. Two toys on the same frequency in the same area would get hopelessly confused between all the various inputs they would receive. Your transmitter might be steering one vehicle one second, and then take over the other vehicle the next.

Transmitters can range from the simple to the complex. Simple transmitters might only send commands like go and stop, or go forward and go backward. Of course, you’d probably want the capability to steer your RC vehicle, so that would need another level of control. In general, the more advanced (and expensive) the RC toy, the more complex the transmitter.

Every transmitter will require some sort of power source, either batteries or a rechargeable battery pack.