Just got my NEW 6300 ...

Gary L. Robinson

Well for the first 45 minutes after getting the Flex 6300 I thought maybe I had made a mistake buying it hihi  I tried to put it on my Windows 7 installation and was getting all sorts of crashes.  After trying several things I decided to give up and see if it would work with my Windows 8.1 installation on the same computer (dual boot).  The WIn 7 installation was 3-4 years old and had so much stuff installed on it that it was NOT worth spending too much time trying to "fix it".

So .... Smart SDR and SmartCat both installed without a hitch on Windows 8.1 and runs great!  Absolutely NO problems and runs wonderfully!  I wanted to migrate to Windows 8.1 anyway so I am very pleased.

Anyhow, it is a little shock getting used to the new (for me it's new) control program - SmartSDR.

At first I was not too thrilled with the SmartSDR interface BUT after about an hour of playing and testing - I was sold on it!!  I am very very very pleased!   I made a few DX contacts on 15mtr SSB and got great reports.  I set my SB-200 amp up with it using the "TX Relay Driver Output" and a cable with phono plugs on both ends.  I bought my SB-200 on ebay last year and it was used - BUT the previous owner had made several mods to it - including a transistorized keying curcuit that works with newer rigs.  The original keying line had 130 volts on it hihi  Anyway, the SB-200 worked fine with the 6300 had got several 59++ reports with good audio.

Next, I will have to set it up for digital operation and see how that works.

Lots to learn - but the more I use SmartSDR, the more I like it.  All sorts of nooks and crannies and surprises in it.

This is an awesome radio!

---Gary WB8ROL

Jim Gilliam

Congratulations!!! Glad you are awed with the radio. I've been with Flex for several years and never stop marveling over it.

Jim, K6QE

Lee - N2LEE

Gary, If you like the radio now it just keep getting better and better.

In my experience the Worse part of SmartSDR is WINDOWS ! 
It causes the bulk of problems most users have.

Enjoy your new radio !

Steve N4LQ

Win 8.1 works great here too. Seems like the Win 7 users have more problems.

Dave -- W7IWW

Congratulations Gary.  You are in for many treats and happy surprises.  Enjoy the adventure and journey into SDR, and most especially, FlexRadio.

73, Dave
W7IWW

Raf

Have no issues running SSDR on win 7. Congrats Gary on your new and exciting HAM rig

Bob Brown - N8OB

I know how you feel Gary, the more I use mine the better I like it.  Also using the SB-200 with it with the Harbach mods.  Works great.

Steve W6SDM

Nice thing about WIndows 8 is that eventually you will upgrade to 10, which is a better platform from all reports.

There are some fixes for an old 7 installation if you want to "salvage" that computer.  One involves removing unneeded apps and cleaning the registry.  The other involves a clean install.   I have been running 7 since the PowerSDR days with only the typical intermittent problems.

Welcome to the Flex family.

Dave KD5FX

I highly recommend getting a Flexcontrol, it is well worth it. Remember, you can listen to your xmit signal by setting the power output to 1 watt and start the recorder while you are talking. Then play it back to hear what you sound like. This will help you tweak all the Xmit settings to get a good sound.
Good luck. 73, Dave

Michael - N5TGL

Win7 here also, haven't had any problems, but do agree that over time some installations can get "cluttered" -- mine is getting close!  Looking for Win10 to fix that.  

Dale KB5VE

Glad you have the 6300 running. I have Win 7 running and have never had a Win 7 issue , did not like 8 never tried 8.1 . I see a lot of post talking about Win 7 issues, maybe it is that my computer I use with my Flex radios is mostly dedicated to ham radio. I do not play games on it and I do most of my internet surfing is on iPad much safer. Might give win 10 a shot.

Steve N4LQ

Could be that there are just more 7 than 8 users I suppose but it does seem like those reporting the most problems are 7's. 

Jim Gilliam

Seems like a classic case of guilty until proven innocent.

Rich McCabe

Gary,  it gets better with time too. I remember my first thoughts of "I wish they would make it more radio like" but after using it and getting outside my box I then started to think I hope they don't change it.

Great radio .

k3Tim

I am relatively new to the Flex line (4 month veteran / 6500) under Win-7 using a 4k monitor.  It's a very nice radio and jumping in at SSD 1.4+ is a like taking a cut in line at Disneyland.

It's been mentioned about cleaning up the registry but what programs / methods is the best to not break the system and gain back some speed?  Also it seems the user profile file gets bloated, anyway to trim it safely?

k3Tim

DrTeeth

Do not ever clean the registry with a registry cleaner. If there is a particular issue, a manual edit can be useful. Registry cleaners do not make any difference to speed/performance and you are likely to have problems in the future.

The best way to get back speed is to check that the prefetch system is working correctly and the disk is defragmented. Also having as few as possible programs loading on startup.The use of disk cleaner from time to time can get back Gbs of disk space.

John n0snx

Congrats Gary... I echo the comments "It only gets better"..... On yeah I'm using an old(i think it was built around 2009) Home built  quad core 266mhz with Win 7 64 bit and I have never had any issues with it... I use it for everything at one time.SSDR, logging, web browsing, ddutil, fldigi, AVG.... you name it I.m running it...

Jim Gilliam

I have had problems with 7, 8, 8.1 only because my operating system became corrupted for unknown reasons. Probably from too much Internet traveling. However, all this corruption is so easily rectified by just making hard drive images regularly. When ever something goes awry (and it will) I am back in 15 minutes.

Jim, K6QE

Steve W6SDM

Guy and I differ on registry cleaning.  However, we probably have different opinions other things too, so that's okay.    It's been that way since we sent that nasty note to King George.

I use a registry cleaner.  CCCleaner, the free version, has served me well for years.  I also use the manual cleaning method but the trick to this is that you must know exactly what you're looking for.  I do not recommend this method to anyone who isn't adept at how applications are registered in Windows.

Guy's right - unless you have some severe limitations on storage and processing speed, cleaning the registry will not do you any good.  Speed is not a criteria for cleaning the registry.  What is good criteria is getting rid of unused keys and references to programs that you have uninstalled.

Some programs don't do a good job of cleaning up after themselves.  That unused registry entry may very well point to a resource, like a com port, and cause unpredictable trouble.   With CCCleaner, you can take a look at what it finds as unused entries and see if they make any sense to you.  You have the option of deleting lines that you know are from things you no longer use.  Think of it as something we need in the White House - the line item veto.

Disk defragmentation will help if you have a badly fragmented disk, especially your swap file. There is a program in Windows that will do this for you, plus there is a program from the makers of CCCLeaner called Defragler.  The reason I use the programs from Pirform rather than all of the **** that's available "free" on the Internet is because you don't have to worry about it changing your home page, your search engine, your wife's maiden name, or what brand of **** you drink. 

CCCleaner will also clean out your browser cache, which is always a good idea.  Stuff gathers there and stays forever just taking up space.  Mine is set to clean every week.  If you've never cleaned your browser cache, bring a lunch and a lantern because it will take a while to get it done.

Oh, and if you have a solid state drive like I do, don't defrag.  It will not only not improve anything because of the way the files are accessed, it will shorten the life of your drive.

Keeping windows clean is essential for your Flex, or any other complex software, to operate correctly.  People blame the radio when something goes amiss when most of the time it's a computer issue.

Hope this helps,

Steve

DrTeeth

Hi Steve,

Unless something has gone pear-shaped, your browser cache should work on a last in last out basis and its size should stay constant - it is self-maintaining. The only way something should stay in forever is if you don't visit enough different pages to recycle the cache contents, in other words your cache is set to too large a size. As a cache is designed to speed up performance, I personally cannot see any point in a frequent clear out. 

Also I have come across a surprising number of Win 7 computers where the prefetch system is no longer working - windows should run a version of defrag every 3 days to order the most frequently used files and those used during booting.

Gary L. Robinson

Windows 7 is a fine O.S. as is Windows 8 and 8.1.  Both run on the SAME computer here in a multiboot confguration using GRUB.  I also have 2 linux distros.  Running SSD drives on all the O.S. drives.

What's interesting is that my Flex 1500 had issues with Windows 8.1 and NO issues with 7 - while my Flex 6300 has issues with the Windows 7 installation and none with Windows 8.1

The computer is a 2.6ghz quad core AMD Phenom X2 with 8gb RAM + NVIDIA GeForce GT-240 video card.

I suspect the Flex 1500 issues were with 8.1 USB chipset drivers.  

The problems with the 6300 and Win 7 would probably all go away if I just reinstalled 7 from scratch BUT it was just easier to go to 8.1 which I like better anyway.

It's just NOT always an O.S. issue per se - often it can be USB, video, and other drivers and the chipset drivers for the MB that make more difference.

I had several Olivia mode digital QSO's today.  Digi operation was easy to set up after reading some posts.  So all is working well at this end!

The biggest battle has been finding the settings I want.  I spent 5 minutes wondering why I could NOT hear anything though my headphones until I noticed the small headphone audio control at the top of Smart SDR hihi  Same thing trying to find out where to change modes.  Slightly hidden in plain sight.  As a GUI interface programmer I kinda wince at things like that - but such is life :-)

---Gary WB8ROL

Norm - W7CK

Win7 here as well.  I haven't had any problems at all.  I keep my system fairly clean and updated which I'm sure helps a bit.  In the same breath though, I have a lot of specialized applications and communications software installed on my Win7 computer.  My system is a home built running an i7 processor with 16Gb of ram and a Samsung 256Gb SSD plus a 2 Tb HD.  I encrypt my drives and also mirror to a 8 TB Synology NAS for all of my data, photos and videos.  I'm running a Flex 6700 and can have all 8 slices open, Ham Radio Deluxe with DM780 and an Olivia session and logging running, be editing a video and have a bunch of other apps open all at the same time and have never run into any problems.  I can even have Windows 10 open via Oracle VM VirtualBox and have several browser sessions open to the internet.  Still no problem!  

Windows 10 is free right now and running it in an Oracle VM VirtualBox is a great way to play with it and not corrupt anything on your present system.

Oh, congrats on the new 6300.  One word of warning - your face may be a bit sore for the next few days due to all the smiling!
 

Norm - W7CK

I bought a Flexcontrol when I purchased my 6700 but I never hooked it up until about a month ago.  Since I got use to running SmartSDR without the Flexcontrol, I've been having a real hard time getting use to having a knob and 3 buttons!  Most of the time I find myself just using the mouse.  It would have been easier getting use to it if I would have hooked it up from the start.   I'll keep trying though!!!

Norm - W7CK

That's a good point about internet access.  I only get on the internet via Oracle VM VirtualBox where I have a copy of Windows XP and Windows 10 running.  I don't use XP very often, but Windows 10 is pretty nice.  Being in a VirutalBox really makes it a lot safer and keep my primary OS (Win7) clean and running quite well.

DrTeeth

Hi Gary,

I also found the interface confusing as if something is not working, there is usually more than one place to look to fix or adjust it (not always logically located either). It must have been very difficult to program the SSDR interface but there are several threads asking for improvements.

Maybe you could do for SSDR what you did for another digicoms program ;-)?

73 de Guy