How do I shut-off the Waterfall so it doesn't always come up when I open a new slice?

k0eoo

I don't normally use waterfall when I'm chasing DX....  The manual doesn't seen to cover shutting off waterfall, so, is there a way?  My workaround is to turn auto off to blank the waterfall and slide the waterfall display until it is no more.... 

EMIL-DL8JJ

Hello,

i need also such button...

Like TNF General OFF/ON button. That will be great!

cu, de DL8JJ, Emil

Tim - W4TME

There isn't a way to turn it off because there is only one display type; Panafall.  Drag the waterfall top bar down so it is hidden.

k0eoo

Hi Tim,

Ok, that's what I was doing but every time I open a new slice I need to drag the top bar down, no persistence?

Tim - W4TME

None of the spectrum display windows have location  and size persistence.  it isn't a feature we have added to SmartSDR for Windows (yet).

Les W6JKA

I would also like to be able to shut off the Panafall. I am demoting into the radio and it grabs a lot of bandwidth

k0eoo

Les, I don't know if you tried this but in the DISPLAY tab if you turn auto off to blank the waterfall to black and then slide the waterfall display down until it's no more, the CPU usage goes back to Panadapter only levels, at least on my PC it did....

Ken - NM9P

Nice solution.  I wouldn't have thought of turning Auto Off and Blackening the waterfall.  Does this actually change CPU drain even with the panafall screen drawn as small as it can get?  

k0eoo

I'm at work now but as I recall, going to black,  cut most if not all of the CPU usage...

Peter

Hi Ken/Les

I ran a few checks after seeing your post about CPU Usage and the following are the results for my computer.

1. 1Pan/1Slice waterfall off CPU avg 7% waterfall on CPU avg 7.6%

2. 2Pan/2Slice waterfall off CPU avg 10.2% waterfall on CPU avg 10.3%

3. 3Pan/3Slice waterfall off CPU avg 13.2% waterfall on CPU avg 13.4%

4. 4Pan/4Slice waterfall off CPU avg 17.3% waterfall on CPU avg 18.2%

As you can see there is a difference but not a massive difference, the largest difference being the 4P/4S at nearly 1% CPU avg.  Checks were run over periods of 10 minutes. Obviously this is just a snapshot of my computer as most computers are configured differently the results for each machine will be different but this just gives you an idea of the cpu usage.

Peter

Dale KB5VE

Why can this feature come up in the hidden mode and then be brought up if there is a desire. I believe that would be better to the bulk of the users .

KY6LA_Howard

Needless to say I totally disagree with the last comment. I suspect most users WANT. The waterfall by default albeit waterfall persistence would satisfy everyone

Dale KB5VE

Since there is no formal means for us to vote on the things we want I guess we bot.h have the right to feel we are right. I have talked to a lot of users several heavy cw users and they voiced the same opinion. The name Flex has always meant that the radio is very flexible. Being on my ninety flex radio I have watched the product grow. In power sdr you can chose any scope you want and if you want it to come up or not. As Tim put it we do not have a panadapter any more but a panafall with the ability to hide the waterfall. All I am saying is we should have a choice of how the screen comes up. If you are a person who wants the waterfall all the time you can choose it to come up . I talk to Gerald and others at flex at times and I understand that changes are time consuming. When they dedicated a lot of resources to getting the waterfall I supported it and was willing to wait for my prime want which is remote over wan, that is the real reason I bought the 6500. Otherwise I was extream lye pleased with my 5000,3000, 1500 all sitting on my shelf. But I did not realize when the waterfall came I was going to have to close it down every time I opened up a slice. As I said when they gave you the waterfall they forced me to have to cut it off, that is not flex able but "this is the way it is whether you want it or not" Still a strong believer in Flex but it is not running the course of the development of power Sdr as it developed we gained features without loosing the way the radio operated before the feature was added. Sorry to take so long a post but at this point I see smart sdr developing into camps for and against something and this reminds me of what I face in my dealing with the day to day life in this country.

Art Wilcox

Since the waterfall doesn't provide useful info it would be better to have TX audio 
display option instead of waterfall. 

Neil D Friedman N3DF

I think the waterfall provides useful info.