SmartSDR Technology Roadmap

KD3VK Ken

With SmartSDR v1.1 out, is an update to SmartSDR Technology Roadmap expected anytime soon?

Tim - W4TME

We should have an updated Roadmap out soon.  We're busy starting on SmartSDR 1.2 already!

Ned K1NJ

  Flex did well, beating many of the  Roadmap goals.  It would be nice to see what we might have to look forward to in a revised edition.

Norm S

I'd especially like to see Squelch and I'd like to see it expanded to the DAX channels as well.  I'll add it to a request since I don't remember seeing it on the Roadmap.

FM would be cool too, but I'm willing to wait until late summer or fall as per the Roadmap.

Steve-N5AC

I'll post an updated roadmap in the next week.  We've been concentrating on building out functionality, but will hold planning meetings for v1.3 and beyond in the next month or so and we can update beyond that horizon as well.  So the first update will not have a lot of additional detail, but more will be added as we move forward.

IK6DLK Fabrizio

And I thought I had bought a radio with all the knobs, but no. One function at a time, perhaps. With so much money that I spent to buy the Flex6K not know yet when it will have all the functions of a radio from a few money?!!

R3QG

Steve Your progress is very slow.   Stand by Fabrizio.   We are your investors expect you to more active forward. I think that the waterfall and Quick rec / play should have been in version 1.1. you promise us 10 months after the start of sales of the radio.   I hope for your understanding.

Reg

Steve:

During the year after the announcement and first shipment of the FLEX-6700 we had a chance to make modifications to our antenna farms to match up better with the RF inputs we would expect on the radios.  Steve's newsletters were very helpful in adding more detail regarding tasks on which WE could be working.

I appreciate the substantial progress has been made to date.  I spent many years in systems development management so I have an understanding of what you face from day to day.

I would still like to see more details of the plan about what will be in future releases so we can work toward being ready for those releases.  For example, I delayed working intensely on digital modes until DAX was released since we knew it would change everything.  (Well, I did use my Tigertronics Signalink USB a little while we waited in order to see how good the narrow filters were going to be.  The Signalink USB has now gone back home to a radio with knobs.)  Actually, DAX turned out to be much more than we hoped for.

Now I look forward to seeing the next Roadmap to see what's in it for us to do in preparation for some of the next great features.

Reg

Steve-N5AC

Sorry for the delay -- here's the updated roadmap.  I'll send out another update after we've released v1.2.

Steve

rfoust

Awesome, thanks!!

Al_NN4ZZ

Steve,
Thanks for the update.  I think you forgot to take credit for the TRACE AVERAGING feature and the additional BAND MODE persistence added in V1.1

Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
al (at) nn4zz (dot) com

Tom

Flex definitively set new standards in terms of expectations.
Now aware of these standards and having actual experience with development pace  and presented roadmaps, we have nothing to complain about.

It is also question of presentation that creates illusion of outperformance.  
More far in the future you plan new feature more happy customers you will have if you deliver couple of months before schedule. Imagine how happy customers would be if you plan squelch functionality in spring 2020 and you actually deliver it in autumn 2019.

We are all satisfied with quality of deliverables and customer support but the big question is how many people would buy this product at this price knowing real functional starting base in the moment of purchase. Now all of us (or most of us, or least some of us) feel like venture capitalists investing in promising radio amateur platform, which is nothing bad by definition...as long as it is matter of choice rather than fait accompli we were faced with. 

Bottom line...expectation management was disaster with this product and something that people would not expect even in their wildest dreams. On the other hand we are happy to see light at the end of tunnel giving us well founded hope that we will get first-class-state-of-the-art-best-of-bread-top-notch product...eventually.

This critical view may be reflection of very difficult day I had today but when there is a smoke, it must be a fire somewhere.

To press Submit or Cancel?
Cancel!
Or maybe submit??
No...press cancel..squelch will probably be ready sometime in 2016!
No, no...Submit!

Ok, Submit it is.

Tom, 9A6TKS

Stan VA7NF

Thanks Steve for the information.  Associated question:
Is CW keying via COM RTS part of CWK or should it be working in 1.2 and a bug?

Being able to automate CW, from N1MM for example, is critical for automation.

Thanks again

Steve-N5AC

It is also question of presentation that creates illusion of outperformance.  More far in the future you plan new feature more happy customers you will have if you deliver couple of months before schedule. Imagine how happy customers would be if you plan squelch functionality in spring 2020 and you actually deliver it in autumn 2019.

Our company has a lot of engineers and frankly we struggle sometimes with how best to manage expectations.  In the past, we were happy to tell you what we thought we could do, but we always presented the "best case."  In other words we said what we could accomplish provided we didn't have anything else to work on.  Life is rarely like this.  We asked some outside advisors to tell us how we were performing (these folks were also customers) and they told us we could do a much better job at both expectations management and customer communications.  We're trying very **** both of these fronts and I hope you can see the evidence of this -- we know that having the best technology is not enough. To the point, we now plan to have life's interruptions.  So now when interruptions occur, we deliver on time and when they don't we deliver ahead of time or we deliver more.  Really, this has not impacted the volume of work we accomplish, but I think it does impact how both you and we feel about our performance with respect to our promises.

So, in a way I would say your criticism is very fair.  But the nature of what we do -- I would call it trailblazing -- is that we don't know at the outset how long things will take.  So if we plan conservatively, creating a schedule we are fairly certain we can accomplish, it may look to you like we are trying to under-promise.  And this is true, we are trying to be sure we can meet what we tell you.  But at the same time, the things that we pull in when we are ahead are either 1) things we have already told you we will do in the future, 2) something that clearly is in demand from our customers that warrants pulling forward, or 3) something that was just "easy" and we did it while we were working in an area.  

I feel very good about what we are accomplishing today -- we have great momentum and we are releasing new, unique functionality with every software release.  We are meeting our promises and are often delivering more.  Whenever possible we make the features we put in the radio more than you would expect.  I welcome suggestions about what we might do differently.  I do feel that the boxes further out on the roadmap are "softer" and "easier" -- they don't have as much meat in them.  And I publicly made a commitment that we would be doing more long-term planning and fill in these boxes after we release v1.2.  So sometime in May, these boxes will be more filled out.  But I want to spend the time to talk to our customers after we release v1.2 and find out what they think should be in the next releases rather than just pick some things quickly. For us, longer-term planning requires a "brain shift" and we like to get out of the day-to-day engineering to do this and the right time for us is right after v1.2.  I hope this timing will be well received by our customers -- I would like for it to be sooner myself.

We are all satisfied with quality of deliverables and customer support but the big question is how many people would buy this product at this price knowing real functional starting base in the moment of purchase. Now all of us (or most of us, or least some of us) feel like venture capitalists investing in promising radio amateur platform, which is nothing bad by definition...as long as it is matter of choice rather than fait accompli we were faced with. 

My sincere hope is that our prospective customers will look at what we have at the time of purchase and decide if this radio is right for them.  We are publishing a roadmap to help each customer make an informed decision on where the radios are going and what they can expect.  I truly believe the FLEX-6000 is the best ham radio money can buy and we are continuing to make it better.  Our feature development capabilities have greatly accelerated in the last six months as everyone on the team has become productive on the platform.  This is the only radio I know that overtly promises to get better over time.  Most radios are "you get what you get at the time that you buy."  So this is a different model and customers have to decide if this is what they want.  I hope customers look at what we are offering and say "you mean a year after I buy this radio I can give you something like 1/20 of the price and get all kinds of new functionality and that goes on and on?!"  Our alternative is to sell new radios and require our customers to "churn" and buy a new radio to get new features.  I think what we offer is more respectful of the customers dollar and a heck of a deal (or we wouldn't be doing it).

Bottom line...expectation management was disaster with this product and something that people would not expect even in their wildest dreams. On the other hand we are happy to see light at the end of tunnel giving us well founded hope that we will get first-class-state-of-the-art-best-of-bread-top-notch product...eventually.

Yeah, it took a lot longer in the at the start than we thought it would.  We felt very bad then and we still get to apologize for this from time to time.  If it's any comfort, many of us worked unreal hours for over a year to meet our commitments the best we could.  If you were impacted by this, I am truly sorry and please know that it was very personal for many of us and we put our hearts into making this right.  But I also hope you can see that we've grown as a company and are doing much more now, we are making our commitments and we listen to our customers (we've always tried to do this, of course).  I regularly talk with customers about how something should be done and then we go away and implement them taking into account all this feedback.  You can literally post a message on this community about something you want to see us do, get others' buy-in and then we can go off and build that in our next software.  Who does this?

This critical view may be reflection of very difficult day I had today but when there is a smoke, it must be a fire somewhere.

To press Submit or Cancel? 
Cancel! 
Or maybe submit?? 
No...press cancel..squelch will probably be ready sometime in 2016!
No, no...Submit! 

Ok, Submit it is.

Tom, 9A6TKS

OK Tom, don't feel bad about submitting.  I get it, I really do and we deserve some lashes for our past. But also, sometimes what we do doesn't make sense and we can't always talk about everything we are doing.  I know that when you see what we've done on squelch you will be very impressed. We'll get it out as soon as we can.  Thanks for taking the time to send your note --

73,
Steve

Bob G W1GLV

Steve, I think FRS is doing a fantastic job with the 6000 series software. Don't forget some people are born to complain and have no way of appreciating what goes in the development of software. At the beginning everyone was told about the development cycle. Anyhow keep up the good work. At least I appreciate it.

Richard G7EIX

Could not agree more!

Tim - W4TME

Stan -  This is not a current feature of SmartSDR.

Tom

Bob,
maybe I missed this point back then...but I was clearly not aware of the development cycle in front of us at the moment of purchase, something like 14 months ago. The only thing I have seen at that time was Flex brochure "Changing Ham radio forever". 
It was exactly point of my post. 
Nothing more and nothing less. 

BTW, I really never complain in restaurants and always leave more than generous tip. And we speak about countries where tipping is not so obvious or expected like in US.

Steve,
thanks for your prompt reply and time you invested in it. It clearly shows me that you care and I appreciate it. I am only hoping that my post is taken with the same flavor.

Once familiar with development cycle I really have nothing to say but superb words about quality you are delivering and transparency you are sharing with us in terms of implementation planning.

My initial understanding of the development stage of the product was wrong. This misconception left a bitter taste in my mouth and I just wanted to spit it out.
Nothing more and nothing less.

BTW, to work this evening VK7 from 9A @ 160m using JT65 via DAX with only 6 meters high shortened vertical dipole cut for 40m and tuned with wide range internal tuner of my Flex...its not bad at the end of the day   

Tom, 9A6TKS

WA6FXT Mike

Absolutely, can't agree more. I was / am getting "ribbed" over how long it took to receive my Flex6700; however, all of my ham friends know that I have received no less than three "Real Software Definition" upgrades for a true SDR. They are amazed at how the same "Rock Solid" hardware was taken from a very basic transceiver (v0.?.?) to what I have today (v1.1.3) and will have, when v1.4 is released. I have friends with K3's and other top of line rigs and the best they can do is brag about some feature their interface does that the 6700 doesn't. But, they know that it is only a matter of time until my 6700 will have that feature and more, via a "download". And that features like TNF, direct Ethernet access / control, network based wide area "diversity" will never be in a "download" for their rig. Sure, I would have liked all the stuff working, when I received the rig; but, I knew I was funding development of the current Bleeding Edge of amateur radio hardware. My Flex6700 has given me the JOY of trying out a brand new rig, no less than four times. Each download was an adventure and I have enjoyed every minute. I look forward to the day that my Flex6700 will control the rotor and linear directly, via the on board USB port, Ethernet, or I2C. (Just the 6700, no local PC) FRS is doing Great! Mike wa6fxt PS: TNF for Field Day, would be a nice surprise. (Hint) hihi

Ken - NM9P

Right on point! I'm loving my Flex....the gift that keeps on giving!

Carl Moreschi

Thanks for the great progress with 1.2.1.
Two things I really would like to have are not in the roadmap.
They are CWL, which I always have add and can't seem to get used to CWU as I always turn the VFO knob the wrong way first (hi hi), and the very nice transverter sheet from PowerSDR.  I have a 144 and 432 transverter and I now adjust antenna selection automatically in my N4PY software for this but it will still be a great enhancement to add the transverter settings form.

Jerry Gardner

I would like to see a release cadence like this:

* Feature Release (new features on roadmap)

* Bug Fix/Enhance Features Release

I know it's tough to make releases without any new features because it's not glamorous, but it will serve users better to go back and fix all the niggling little bugs and issues that tend to get ignored in the rush to implement shiny new features. This time can also be spend making the overall software more robust and making some of the previously implemented features that work marginally work the way they should.

Steve-N5AC

We will continue to do bug fixes as we release, but we're tending to do releases that have both features and bug fixes in each release rather than dedicating a release to all features and then all bug fixes.  Which features do you feel "work marginally" that we need to address?

Jerry Gardner

NR/NB/APF/ANF work, but not nearly as well as they do on my FTdx-5000 and I think they need improvements. Ditto for AGC.

ANF is a good example. If the SSB signal I'm listening to is strong, then ANF kills a carrier in the filter passband completely. On the other hand, if the SSB signal is weak, ANF doesn't seem to work at all -- I can still hear the carrier with almost no attenuation.

David Decoons, wo2x

RX filters.

Have the ability to save custom filters and also a rx filter display similar to the new TX filter under the Phone tab.

Having the ability to move the mouse to shift/expand/contract the filter is nice but lacks precision.

Dave. wo2x

WA6FXT Mike

Steve, The NR/NB are better; but, marginal. As for ANF, it was marginal also; however, who needs it with TNF? Thanks for getting the TNF out early. Mike

Paul Christensen, W9AC

I like Carl's suggestion of implementing CW-U and CW-L.  Possibly with a right-click of the CW tab in the slice window? 

Would also like to see some means of quick and easily-accessible CW SPOT function on the display and added to FlexControl.

Paul, W9AC

Tim - W4TME

This question deserves its own topic. Please reference the new topic here: Which features do you feel "work marginally" that we need to address?