30 meter Lockups

Steve N4LQ

6500 locks locks up on on 30 meters when on lan only. No problems until I switched from direct pc connection via extra nic card to the lan. Cable modem/router has 4 ports. It's located 3 feet from the 6500 so I just used a 6' jumper to the router. All other bands are fine via the lan. Never a lockup but on 30m all I need to do is tap a few dits on the key and within a few seconds the screen freezes and audio stops. Wait for a few seconds, it unlocks and looks normal but freezes again on its own with no key tapping and keeps doing it....If I keep provoking it eventually it will freeze and become unresponsive to the mouse. Obviously RFI was my first though. I reduced power to zero....Totally zero...I even listened on another receiver to be sure my power was zero.... There is no change...tap the key and again it locks up. but ONLY ON 30 meters. This is not random. It happens every time and is very predictable. Usually I can switch bands and all is well on the other bands but if I go back to 30m she locks up again. If it gets too locked up I have to reboot the rig. When I connect back to my nic card everything is fine again.... Full bars on the green indicator - ssdr Latency says max of 2 and sometimes 4 ms when on the lan. Less than 1 ms max when on the nic. So what is different about 30 meters? I sure don't see any. Steve N4LQ

Jim Gilliam

Thank you for the info. I just tried it and my 6500 locked up the same way.

Jim, K6QE

KY6LA_Howard

If it looks like RFI, smells like RFI and quacks like RFI Then My first guess is RFI... NOT from your transmitter but likely from your LAN and/or Router

Try putting some ferrites on you LAN Cable to see if anything changes.

Steve N4LQ

Well actually that is the first thing I tried. 8 turns of the cat5 through a 2" 43. 
I agree...Sounds like RFI but not. Also I put one on the RG6 cable service. So both cat5's, one to the pc and the other to the rig are well choked plus the cable service. 
BTW...version 1.4.3 latest.

Steve N4LQ

Guess you don't usually operate 30 meters then?
What kind of router arrangement do you have Jim?

Rob - AG6RK

I am seeing similar lockup behavior independent of band.  It seems to be random occurrence and happens mostly during RX without any TX. Running 1.4.0 on Win7 and can see SmartSDR CPU percentage go to zero and network traffic drop for ~5 to ~10 seconds and then comes back to normal.  It did it once while transmitting and the 6500 stayed in transmit mode from VOX and then unkeyed and back to normal after ~5 secs.

6500 and Win7 PC is connected through a Gigabit switch without any other traffic on the LAN.  It appears to be related to the xcvr vs. the PC, would be interested if I can turn up the verbosity on any status logging on the 6500.

I'm open to suggestions to find root cause.

73,
Rob - AG6RK

Jim Gilliam

WRT1900AC Linksys/Belkin....lock up on WiFi haven't tried it with direct connect to router. Using Sony Vaio portable. No RFI problems.

Jim

Steve N4LQ

Sounds like a different issue Rob.
What's weird here is it happens on 30 meters only. 
No problems with directly connected to the PC though. I just wanted to get it hooked up to the LAN for some reason. For now it's back to the PC. 

Stan VA7NF

What hasn't been mentioned is the ground lead.  Any chance it may be resonant?

Steve N4LQ

Sure but it's the same ground lead whether I'm LAN or PC connected plus I'm not transmitting any power....ZERO. 
Now maybe the 6500 transmitts at 2.4 ghz when on 30 meters and I'm not aware of it. That might cause some havoc! 

Rob Fissel

Had similar issues on 12 and 10 meters. Resolved by moving the router closer to my computer and Flex. Originally I had 50ft cat6 runs between my computer - router and flex - router. The cables are now about 6 ft long for both, and this resolved the RF coupling issues.

How long is your networking runs, along with your grounding strap/braid/wire run?

George KF2T

Does the problem persist if you do a factory reset - and don't load back in any profiles? 

Steve N4LQ

Interesting proposition. I guess it's worth a shot. 
I have been changing bands with the profiles. Maybe I'll try selecting 30 meters without a profile first then if that doesn't work I'll reinstall everything. 
Something has to be unique to 30 meters other than just RF since there isn't any.

Steve N4LQ

Fixed....
Factory reset did the trick.  DUH
Thanks to all.

BTW: Manual has typos in paragraph about resetting the 6500. 

Steve N4LQ

Question: If Import the old profile will the problem come back? 
Wonder how it got corrupted? 

George KF2T

One way to find out!