Really want an analog S meter

The Count

Better S / Power meter needed. Best would be to chose between analog and digital. The way it is now one can hardly see low(er) readings! Also, the Flex does not remember the order of panels between sessions.

James Whiteway

Good, FREE meter is from Woodbox radio. I'm using it and really like it. For the price, it cannot be beat!
james
WD5GWY

The Count

Great tip my friend! Just installed the Classic S-Meter for SmartSDR. Works nice, Flex should make that a part of the operating system ;-)

Here is the link....

http://www.woodboxradio.com/freeware.html

KY6LA_Howard

https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/finally_a_usable_visible_s_meter_for_ssdr_via_ddutil I just wish we had a readable DIGITAL meterin SSDR

DrTeeth

I want a readable power meter - I don't care if it is digital or not. I just want to be able to tell if I am running 20 or 25W without having to faff about with the SSDR meter - let's forget the colour scheme for a moment and think about no figures or markings between 0 and 40 so indicate 10, 20, and 30W.

As well as wanting to know what (low) power I am using on JT65, the power limit for 1850-2000 in the UK is 32W at the antenna.

KY6LA_Howard

Guy there are already a couple of good 3rd Party S-Meters
Albeit I would prefer a good VISIBLE digital meters

Try this one www.denzone.com

it gives Power

DrTeeth

I looked at that meter. Takes too much screen space and has power in dBW - I do watts only, hi hi.

I am looking for something like that at the bottom of this page http://www.woodboxradio.com/freeware.html that was kindly supplied by Cone Head above. Looks like there is something that you could find handy for remote working - a virtual tuning knob.

Steve Gw0gei

Thanks - I installed it this evening and it looks nice. Only problem is that when it is running my logging prog or contesting progs (logger32 and n1mmplus) cannot read the freq from smartcat.  I have them on cat4 which is the selected default port in smartcat for cat interface. I tried assigning to port 5 but that didn't work the meter. Can you get the meter and freq polling from logging programme to work at same time ? Its probably me missing something in the smart cat setting box?

cheers, Steve gw0gei

DrTeeth

Hi Steve,

It is a bit of a black art getting COM ports assigned. First, in spite of what the SmartCAT main tab says, only one device can be connected to one port at a time (you say you have "them" on CAT 4). Just create as many COM ports as you need and have a mess about and it won't be too long until all is well. I am not an expert by any means but I have made come headway with this issue here.

Cheers

Steve Gw0gei

Thanks Guy. I have been away with work so will give it another go this weekend. When I assigned the meter to another port in smart cat it didn't move on signals but worked fine when the cat port (4) is chosen. However that then stops n1mmplus or logger32 from using that port so freq is not shown in logging programme. I will have another play with it this weekend. Cheers Steve

km9r.mike

Not to swim against the stream but I have adapted and no longer reference the s-meter. I reference strength of signals as displayed on the panadapter as well as brightness in the waterfall. Can I give a 20bd over s-9 using this method no but a 59+ can easily suffice.

N7AIG

COM port sharing is disallowed under MS Windows. This kind of ancient protocol was fine when only one program could run in the computer to talk to your devices. But increasingly, we are seeing the need for devices as services to multiple client apps.

The problem with the COM model is that it assumes only one talker and listener. No ID's are exchanged. Hence port sharing programs from Eltima and others is still insufficient. A device answer intended for one query source ends up broadcast to all listeners.

I have begun writing interposer code that always runs, which makes all devices appear as services to apps. Apps send along a return address for every query so the answers don't get broadcast. To make this work with apps expecting a private COM port, I manufacture individual virtual ports for each of them to use. The ports carry implicit return addresses to the service thread. This has worked very well for me, and allows any number of simultaneous users of multiple radios in concurrent use.

E.g., this allows me to have K3, Flex-3000, and IC-7700 all running at the same time, with apps like HDSDR, PowerSDR, FLDigi, and WSPR-X

73 de Dave, N7AIG

k3Tim

1). For the WoodBoxRadio S-Meter (SSDR) how does one force it to use Slice N where N = B, C or D ?

2). IS WBR adapting their box of knobs to SSDR?

k3Tim / MSEE / PE / PP-SEL-IFR