Another new DXCC

Steve - M3SXA

Popped on today for an hour on digimodes and grabbed United Arab Emirates (new one for me) plus USA and Japan thanks to the Flex Radio & 10 watts! Just need the problem sorted with HRD and I'll be a happy ham ;-)

John W9KXQ

I have to agree with you.  The HRD issues make the digital modes almost impossible for me to use on a regular basis.  Sometimes the PTT works and most of the time it does not key my 6500!

Steve - M3SXA

Hi John well it always works after a fashion... But very often or not DM 780 crash's on start up and if you try and load the logbook before DM no chance.... Been told it is being worked on but not tried the beta which has supposed to have better support for the flex so sticking with the current release of HRD.

Tim - W4TME

Try Fldigi v3.21.80 or greater with the SmartSDR RigCAT config file for CAT.  It is a lot more stable and free.

Steve - M3SXA

Hi Tim, I might give it a go, but so used to HRD... as been using it for years... and with the promise of HRD and Flex investigating the problems I wanted to hold out changing...

John W9KXQ

Tim,
Free is good, but I have been a paid up user of HRD way before I owned a Flex.  I was not able to figure out how to get Fldigi to key my Flex and it is not consistent with my logging in HRD.  Sorry, but Flex should work with either not just Fldigi.

John W9KXQ

Steve,
I had to upgrade my video card before I was able to get HRD Log & DM780 to play nice without crashing.  I tried HRD public Beta version and went back to the paid support one.  It more stable.  The video card upgrade was the advice of Dudley at Flex.  He was spot on.

Tim - W4TME

John - this isn't a SmartSDR CAT problem.  We are sending properly formatted CAT commands, as proof by all the other CAT enabled programs that are working.  We have reached out to the Developers at HRD to assist.

Ned K1NJ

Fldigi only takes a little while to set up.  You can switch to HRD when
possible.  In the meantime you'll get those contacts.  I'm sure Flex is
eager to work with those who will work with them.  Not to worry.

W4EY

Over the past several years, I have been using the Fldigi applications for Digital, CW, and RTTY with my Flex 5000A and now the Flex 6500. Recently I upgraded to Fldigi v3.21.80 which includes the Flex SmartSDR.xml initialization file.

In addition, I run the Fldigi DXCLUSTER application with Fldig. No problems thanks to the Flex and Fldigi team..

Approximately, Four years I started working on LOTW DXCC for each individual HF band using the Flex 5000A and last year switching to the Flex 6500. To date, I need five more 10 meter DX countries confirmed on LOTW which will complete my LOTW DXCC on each 7 individual HF Bands. 

Thanks FLEX..

Steve - M3SXA

Thanks Tim, just out of interest I set up Ros just to see what it was like, worked perfectly with PTT etc...

Steve - M3SXA

Thanks John, well it's a pretty high spec machine win 7. 64x itel i7 16gb ram and Nvidia 650i turbo boost card in it, was my games machine I built but given up gaming and now dedicated to the flex... ;-) It all works fine, but you get things like when you change band the freq display on each of HRD program 's change apart from DM.... Sits there for ages, if you quit logbook the change is instant. On running HRD it loads the main program then Dm780, sometimes it loads perfectly other times it don't, when it successfully loads ok I then load the logbook and it all works... Hopefully they will get there in the end.... No disrespect to either but flex have told me it's HRD and HRD say it's cat.... But hopefully it will get sorted in the end... Fingers crossed ;-) Steve

W4EY

Steve: I found that if you start DM-780 by itself. After DM-780 connects and loads, then start HRD Log and DXCC. This seems to be more stable if you configure HRD Connect to only start DM-780 and use a SmartCAT configured  "Shared" Com port..

Bill

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I've been running HRD 6 with my 6500 since I got both in December with no major problems.  I start SSDR, then let HRD (Beta 6.2.3.245 currently) start both the logbook & DM780.  HRD runs on Com4 (the default) and DM780 on SDCat virtual PTT port combo 5/15.  I can log out of DM780, from the look-up panel on Log, or by manually clicking on 'Add'.  With the addition of DAX I find myself running more & more RTTY, particularly for chasing the W1AW/p stations.  I upload my day's contacts every evening to LoTW and the software automatically uploads them to eQSL, ClubLog & HRDlog.net.

Steve - M3SXA

Hi Bill I use com 4 for HRD which then loads DM780 using com 5 and that's set up for PTT, I then load logbook manually.... I'll give that a go what you suggest later today when I finish my night shift yawn..... Steve

Steve - M3SXA

Rick what have you set up for com 5 is it PTT or shared? I have it as PTT. Bill (W4EY) wrote above he has it set as shared , I was told PTT Steve

Rick Hadley - W0FG

Steve, I have it set as PTT, with RTS & DTS both enabled.

Rick, W0FG

Steve - M3SXA

Hi Rick same here... Ok thanks

K1DBO

I too had an interesting HRD adventure.  It stared with the name of the "radio" having a slash in it.  Most of HRD took this to be a folder name separator so it was looking in the PowerSDR folder for the SmartSDR config files (radio name was PowerSDR/SmartSDR).  As it result, it couldnt write the config files out after a change was made.  I came up with a work around for this that involved creating some folders named PowerSDR. They may have fixed that by now though but the latest beta (at the time at least) was giving me other problems.

I also had the laggy xmit problem in HRD too.  Part of trouble I had with trying different versions of HRD to get around the radio name problem involved HRD Logbook not starting.  But when the logbook didnt start, the xmit problem didnt exist either.  When I rolled back to the lastest (non-beta) version, on a whim, I tried connecting the logbook  to the HRD TCP port on DDutil and DM780 to HRD's TCP port... like magic all was well.  No lag at all going into or out of xmit.  I concluded it was some strange interaction between the logbook and DM780 when both were connected directly to HRD's TCP port a lot of traffic was being generated between them.

I've also seen some really ugly PSK waveforms on xmit.  Shutting down and restarting DAX fixes that one right up.  No need to shut down DM780.

I run all of my ham software in virtual machines hosted by ESXi.  The only (reasonable) way to connect to the VMs is through RDP.  This creates some interesting soundcard issues... like there isnt one.  When connecting it's important to tell RDP to "leave sounds at the server" otherwise windows will disable all sound cards except for the virtual one that RDP install when connected.  Without a sound card, Windows find whatever looks like a sound card (DAX) and make it the default audio device.  DAX doesnt like that much.  The fix was our old friend VAC.  I made a virtual sound card connected to nothing and set it as the default audio device.  It turns out that having this VAC in place makes Skype useful for listening to DAX, it's just too bad that those fancy mixing controls all over the SmartSDR UI cant be used to control the audio going to a DAX channel.

Now speaking of video cards messing with the audio, I have seen something similar.  My windows machines dont have video cards, just the RDP video driver.  But, I can believe there's a connection.  If I'm connected remotely to my SmartSDR machine via a really really bad internet connection, I cant transmit or receive digimodes.  This just sounds crazy to me (but I'm happy to blame Microsoft) because the audio never leaves the remote machine. There seems to be some sort of synchronization between the audio and the display driver... if windows cant update my remote display quickly enough because of the poor connection, the audio (which never leaves the remote computer, BTW) suffers.  Crazy sure, but reproducible... from a poorly connected remote location just display four panadapters and a large DM780 with a fast update rate and see if DM780 can still decode anything.  The same test on my home LAN works fine.

Crazier still is that I too exchanged some PSK encoded bytes with the United Arab Emirates this morning!

W4EY

All:
I have the following COM ports configured in SmartCAT.  Com4 is the initial 3rd Party Program Port set in the Main Tabl. My serial ports are set as Com5-15 Shared, Com6-16 as Dedicated and Com7-17 as PTT with RTS checked. Initial Startup of HRD is Preset to connect to the FLEX with Com6 -- FlexRadio -- PowerSDR SmartSDR running at 115200. I have tried the FLEX Com4 Party Com port and botyh seem to run FLEX CAT.
On the initial HRD Connect Preset window -- HRD Connect only had DM-780 checked in the Auto Start box. The SmartSDR CAT Com4 for 3rd Party and Com6 seem to control the FLEX CAT functions. I found that Com6 was more responsive
to Waterfall changes than Com4.  DM-780 PTT is set to Com 7 with RTS and DTR checked. After I connect to the FLEX and DM-780 starts and completes the loading.
 I start the HRD LOGBook app and all works OK. The issues with running FLEX split panadapters that causes a problem with HRD.  DM-780 settings are configured for DAX 1 RX and TX. When running FLEX Split, DAX 1 can not be assigned to the two seperate Panadapters. The result is loosing either Digital Receive Display or Digital Transmit since DAX changes to None in one of the Panadapters.Running TWO HRD-DM 780 apps with different DAX settings only caused more problems and major Lockup of the FLEX Display. I have tried to use DAX 1 RXand DAX 2 TX on the DM-780 without any luck. setting everything for Receive on DAX 1 and Transmit on DAX 2 for the Split does not work for me.   Switched to FlDigi where I can run limited split using the lock frequency for Transmit Audio by setting the LK function.Then tuning back down the waterfall for the receive signal. This appears to work using a single Panadapter and Splitting the Transmit frequency up several Khz. When trying this with HRD DM-780, the FLEX starts having lock up issues and required a major restart.
Hope this clears up the settings I was using for HRD..
Bill W4EY

Ernest - W4EG

Tim - W9KXQ and anyone else that is interested.

I 've tried Fldigi and various other programs throughout the years and I found that they all have some quirk to get them operating the way you want.  However, the simple fact is that it has the software that I like to use in one package. I do not need to download software from other location and then configure it and hope that it works. 

I have stuck it out and HRD is functioning well and to my liking.  If you have not downloaded their latest version 6.2.3.255 released 04/15/2014; do.  It's more stable and has solve several issues with SmartSDR.  I have been running for several days continuously with no failure or hiccup's.

I been  told that Flex is working with HRD but I have no confirmation from either side to be true.  Flex seems to be favoring Fldigi but that is only my opinion.

W4EY

Steve. I have SmartCAT set for COM4 Connect to "3rd party Program to Port" in the Main SmartCAT window. In the SmartCAT Serial Ports window, I have Com5-15 Shared, Com6-16 Dedicated and Com7-17 PTT-RTS. I use Com7 for Fldigi, and DM-780 PTT with RTS plus DTR checked. I use Com4 for HRD Connect for CAT.
I have found that SmartCAT Com6 gives better CAT control when configured in the HRD Connect window. The SmartCAT Com port Com5 is used for other purposes...Such as my Remote Antenna Tuner for example. My biggest issue with HRD is that I paid for a license and upgrade from HRD v5.0 to HRD Delux 6.1.4.189. Some of the HRD v5.0 Data previously used was not compatible with the upgrade format and I lost my previous LOG which was not converted to the new format. HRD does instruct you to backup your Data and Log prior to upgrading to the new version. I followed their process word for word. However, the previous v5.0 date was not converted and I lost important files. There were several other ways that I had to accomplish to get this log downloaded and then put into the new HRD folder.
When starting HRD, the HRD Connect does not always work correctly and sometimes has the wrong FLEX modes,  and frequency displayed.
Presently, I can run the latest version of HRD DM 780 and Fldigi on my FLEX 5000a and 6500 Systems. However, when using the Flex 6500, I prefer Fldigi.
It is basically what you find more suitable for your need. Either works for me..
Bill W4EY

Steve - M3SXA

Hi Ernest, funny enough I took the plunge and updated to the beta an hour ago... so far so good but it's only been an hour and I notice I still get the lag of when changing bands on the flex, the frequency does not change in DM780 but does within a second in HRD main program and logbook... if I quit logbook it changes ok....

W4EY

Ernest: FLEX has been working with the Fldigi Team and the latest Fldigi Version 3.21.80 operates excellent with the FLEX SmartSDR.xml file. Previously when using Fldigi, you had to reload and initiate the SmartSDR.xml file when first starting Fldigi. Flex and Fldigi team worked on the Fldigi initialization process and Now it loads automatically on start up of Fldigi.
Bill W4EY

Ernest - W4EG

       

Steve,

I am not experiencing lag in band change, it seems to be better than previous versions.  How many monitors are you using?  The reason I asked is as follow:

When I was using  2 monitors running SmartSDR, CAT, DAX plus HRD, DM780, Rotor and JT65 beside all the Win7 software etc.. That combination was running slow and HRD, JT65 would change bands the programs would close or Smart software would not remain open.  I added a third monitor and it became like night and day.  Worked well but the open software had to be minimized.  Each had their own real estate with nothing underneath.

Since them everything has worked perfectly fast and no more problems.

These setup works well for me. 

           This monitor I use for IE, email, or whatever by shrinking the size of JT65/9

Steve - M3SXA

Just the one monitor Ernest, strange when you quit logbook the freq change is fine reload logbook and DM780 freq does not change... Anyway I'll see how this beta runs over the next few days thanks for the info. Incidentally Hrd closed my support ticket and said open another when Greg gets back to me as he was trying to find the problem so that is still ongoing . Anyway time for work and then the Easter Break...