A problem for me anyway, that others may stumble across

N4TTY

Just gave myself a big scare. Thought I had whacked two years off my life expectancy! Radio arrived yesterday and things went together exceptionally well. Very pleased!! This morning however with the SmartSDR software running already I decided to start SmartSDR CAT. I guess that was the wrong thing to do as both SmartSDR CAT and SmartSDR both crashed with all kinds of errors on my Windows screen. But the scariest part was the Flex 6700 had a "Shutting Down... Error xxxx" message on its display with the power LED blinking red. It took me a little while to realize I needed to hold the On/Off button down for a few seconds before releasing to remove power and then the power LED was amber. I then tried powering on again and the FlexRadio Systems 'logo' appeared in the radio's message screen. But instead of changing to FLEX-6700 on the message screen up pops "Shutting Down... ERROR xxxx" with power LED blinking red!!!!! Powered off via the On/Off button as my life's clock began spinning out of control. I waited some time trying to figure out what to do next: Panic, Submit a Helpdesk Ticket, Die.... Finally decided to remove power from the back of the radio and then reapply. Then tried powering back up with the On/Off switch and all seems to be just fine now! So I guess the lesson learned from this in regards to SmartSDR CAT is that it shouldn't be run when SmartSDR is running! I sure didn't get that from the documentation I read. For now I'm just staying away from SmartSDR CAT until I see some pointers from the rest of you.

Stu Phillips - K6TU

SmartCAT works fine! There are some restart problems with it so suggest that when you power cycle your radio (DC off and back on), make sure to quit CAT and then restart it after. Neither SmartSDR or CAT interact with each other - they both interact with the radio. You still have 8 lives left! Miow! :-) Stu K6TU

N4TTY

Thanks for the reassurances. Since you seem to be running everything OK, maybe I can ask for some help understanding some things I didn't get from the documentation. In the documentation for SmartCAT it mentions starting two ways, automatic and manual. It seems to be installed by default in the automatic mode. I found both CAT_64 and SmartSDR CAT in my "Startup" folder. I'm assuming the CAT_64 is because I am running a 64 bit system (WIN7 64bit). If I was running 32 bit would I see a CAT_32 or nothing at all for that part of the puzzle? I wanted to run in the manual mode, so I deleted the two items from the "Startup" folder. When I started SmartSDR CAT this morning I had not taken into account the CAT_64 so maybe that was the reason I experienced the crash? Thoughts? Heavy thunderstorms are limiting my playing around time with the 6700 that is currently disconnected from the world! And I'm savoring my remaining 8 lives if I really have that many still in the bucket. Steve G./N4TTY

Tim - W4TME

CAT_64 is probably there because it was not uninstalled manually before installing SmartSDR CAT v1.1.3. And Yes, CAT_64 (the alpha version) was the 64-bit version. You will only have "SmartSDR CAT" going forward because the software can operate as both a 32 or 64-bit application.

N4TTY

I had installed the 12.17 SmartSDR so I guess the CAT_64 got loaded then. I thought loading the CAT software was a separate process, but I guess I missed something and thought it was never loaded.

Tim - W4TME

On the other issue, I need the error code to understand what is going on. Can you provide that?

N4TTY

Tim, When the error first appeared in the 6700 display it was PSH5V3-5.83 Then when I powered back up the 6700, without removing power from the back of the unit the error displayed changed to PSH5V3-5.85 Is that what you are looking for?

Tim - W4TME

That is the error message I need. Stand by for the translation.