Tablet operation with Flex 1500 + Dell Venue 8 Pro

Gary L. Robinson

It took a little work but I am now running PowerSDR 2.7.2 on my new Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet.  Also using FLDigi with it.  
The tablet uses Windows 8.1 and has an encrypted secure boot.  I did have to remove the encryption and disable the secure boot for it to be hassle free but I am not paranoid about security. However, some people may not want to do that.  It would be nice to have a signed driver for the tablet to avoid having to do that.
Anyhow, it runs great on the tablet on digital modes and SSB.  I used a small (unpowered) usb hub to connect a mouse, keyboard, and the Flex 1500 to the single usb port on the tablet.
This July my Flex 1500 will be 4 years old.  And I would still NOT trade it for ANY analog rig on the market.  This rig rocks!

---Gary WB8ROL

W1MSG

Have you noticed on the Tablet that the Flex screen is a little jumbled up ? I have a Toshiba Win 8.1 tablet, and it works well with my 1500 but the screens are just off a little.

Craig  W1MSG

Tim - W4TME

Check the display's DPI setting as it must be 96 DPI (the default for Window) for PowerSDR to render properly.  Win8 has dynamic DPI scaling that can cause problems on smaller displays.

W1MSG

That was it, thanks Tim !

Tom Hoflich

Gary, thanks for doing this.  It was on my things to do.
I installed 2.7.2 without a "hitch".
But when I run it, the only Model that I see is DEMO which runs fine.
I checked device manager and see the message about digital signature.
Based on what you said, I unencrypted and nothing changed.
Can you help me see what I am missing?
73 Tom KM5H

Gary L. Robinson

Re-read my initial posting. To get the Dell Venue 8 pro working you need to remove the encryption (There's a setting for it but I can't remember offhand where) and THEN you have to boot into the bios and disable Secure Boot. You MIGHT also have to temporarily turn off anti-virus and spyware protection. And you may also have to change settings to allow unsigned drivers. Then all should work well. You should be able to use the Search (on the side "charm" to find "encryption" and "How to boot into bios" and "Allow unsigned drivers".
At least that is how I managed to make it work.

Gary L. Robinson

Here is link on how to allow unsigned drivers. http://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows-8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/ The last step says to Press F7 which you can not do on a tablet on that screen BUT I let that screen time out AND then rebooted again after it reloaded and it did rhe job anyway.

Paul Christensen, W9AC

I'm running SmartSDR on a new Dell Venu 8 Pro tablet on my home WiFi network.  The display, controls, all work like I'm at the rig running my main PC.  I even have CW working remotely with a pair of K1EL Winkeyers in Remote mode. 

The hard part seems to be over.  Of all things, I cannot get audio to play on the tablet.  I've tried assigning the active slice to DAX Rx 1, but when I select that for playback in Windows, there's nothing there. Visually, I see the audio levels changing in the Win 8 mixer, just no sound out of the Venu 8 Pro speakers.  What am I missing?

Paul Christensen, W9AC

Working now.  Went into the Win 8 audio recording tab, selected "recording devices," then the Rx 1 DAX slice, then Properties, "Listen to this Device."

Paul, W9AC