Spektrum AR9020 binding please help!

Alright this one has me going nutty. And it's s fairly simple problem. I just picked up a DX18 remote and an AR9020 to use on a hydraulic excavator. I'm trying to bind them together but not having any luck bi know this is an extremely simple task to accomplish which I've successfully done many times. When I plug the bind plug in and apply power to the receiver (using a 6.6v receiver battery) the orange led on the receiver does nothing! I've tried this on 2 other AR 9020s with the same results. What gets me is I have a AR9000 receiver and when I try that it works fine! What am I missing here?!?!

[Bo Wallen]

Try put bind plug in the batt slot not in the bind slot some are markt wrong.
hope it works.

That's a negative. I've tried just about every combination

[Bo Wallen]

Is it a air or surface system ? air don't work with surface.

It's an air system. To my knowledge it doesn't matter if it's air or surface, as I've used other spektrum air radios with King haulers. They all do the same thing - move servos

[jack van]

are you useing a ecu or mfc if so plug esc into the battery slot then put bind plug in bind slot set radio to slow spot on stick if you have the other antena also plugged in. turn reciever on first then the radio make sure you hold bind button down when turning radio on soon as lights stop flashing and stoy on solid then it should be bound

[jack van]

also esc might have its own power which should be on

[Bo Wallen]

O no!!! Air transmitter can't communicate wit surface receiver.
air is duplex surface is mono. (Air system send signals both ways)
is it Gen 1 or Gen 2

Right now I'm just using a receiver battery until I get everything set up. It will eventually be running off of an esc. The DX 18 and AR9020 are designed to be used together so there won't be any communication issues

All that's needed to bind the receiver is a power supply whether it be an esc bec mfcu or simply a battery, and the bind plug to be inserted. That's where the problem lies. The receiver will not enter bind mode

Alright a guys problem solved! Spektrum did a lousy job labeling the outputs. What I thought was bind/data is actually throttle. It's a bit confusing to understand as it appears upside down thanks for all the input!

[Lil Giants]

It's labelled on both sides of rx differently, not sure what side is supposed to be up... I found it confusing too at 1st.

Looking at the receiver, I guess the right side of the labeling corresponds to the row of slots on top. I though the left side was for those. It seemed logical.