Flex 6300 stops LAN (and audio) traffic intermittently

Larry Loen WO7R

This morning, i see a new symptom.  Applies to at least 12 and 15 meters.  What happen is, every once in a while, the 6300 simply stops communicating.  I can see it on the LAN,  I'm listening somewhere and then for maybe 3 or 4 seconds, it just drops out.  My router shows the traffic drop-off, so I know it isn't something else.

Nor is it a remote problem.  My MixW2 RTTY session on my local PC sees no audio on DAX (which, given that nothing went over the LAN in that interval, is hardly surprising).  I can also see things still happening on my TightVNC session with other windows.  I'm not local today, so I can't do anything really fine-grained.

It also has happened once or twice in transmit.  I wonder if it is some sort of de-sense, but why would that cause the LAN traffic to entirely shut down.  And why would it ever affect transmit?

There is one LAN operation that does work.  On my local PC, I was able to ping the 6300 successfully while a couple of these incidents were going on.

It also affects the speaker audio.  No audio out of that source during one of these incidents.  The audio is remoted but again, my local measures show the effect on the LAN side.  So, I assume I would lose the audio locally were I present.

Never had this before.  Any insight?  I am going through something with my ISP as well, but as I can measure all of this on the local PC, I don't see how that can have anything to do with it (and I think the ISP problem is resolved -- and I have all my other local-to-local and local-to-remote working fine during these incidents).

k3Tim

This sounds like the lock-up already reported numerous times.  If you disable all DAX channels, it should go.  Trust me, they (FRS) is looking into this.  

On a beast of a PC system, I am seeing same thing when using a 6500 on same LAN as everything else.  With a separate LAN port to the 6500, 4 Dax audtio and two I/Q channels going, it won't lock up.

Regards,
k3Tim

Larry Loen WO7R

My google-fu is failing, I googled SmartSDR and lock-up and came up empty.  I also use RTTY so I would like to be able to turn on DAX now and then, at least when running RTTY.

Did you mean to disable "other" channels?  Some?  All?  I'm not sure I understand you.

Never had this problem at all until today.  At least two weeks of worry free with 1.4.3.  I don't know if it is realistic for me to back up to 1.3.8; I don't really wish to.  But, this certainly can interefere with DX QSOs.

Is there a pointer to the "right" procedure for disabling (and maybe renabling) DAX?  Do I just go to the DAX control panel?

I'll try that first.

Edit:  Ok, shutting off all DAX from the DAX console seems to work.  I guess I'll have to "risk" reenabling it when I'm doing RTTY, but this looks OK for CW and SSB.

Thanks for the workaround!

k3Tim

Hi Larry,

Yes, one has to disable all channels.  ....  But I see you observed the same results.

Here is link to posting of what I assume is same issue:

https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/smart-sdr-freezes

That thread has further links.  

I run mainly CW and SWL.  When dabling in RTTY or NAVTEK/FEC-B maritime traffic the freeze was observed.  When the 6500 is on it's own private ethernet port - there is no freeze.  Maybe till they get it resolved a separate Ethernet port is something to consider. 

The 1.4.x s/w was a big change under the covers and it's really for the best in the long term. There is some steps backwards but here I am not seeing this due to two port Ethernet.

Best Regards,

k3Tim

Larry Loen WO7R

Experimenting with workaround suggests xmit more critical. If I turn DAX TX off problem much if not entirely gone. Need more experience to be sure.

K2CM

Looks like RF is getting into your PC. Try putting ferrite cores on cables and improving your ground system.

Larry Loen WO7R

News on this problem as I have seen it (don't know how to find the other threads, search in this community not too good).

1.  When the problem happens, the color goes from blue to orange/yellow on the DAX panel.
2.  When I don't have transmit enabled, it pretty much never happens.  That's kind of big new for me.  It means I can receive digital and the "risk" comes from transmit.
3.  Sometimes, when it turns yellow, I can toggle the "1" and it turns blue and works.
4.  My most recent attempt turned it RED and the radio disconnected.

Don't know if any of these are new symptoms.  Can someone from Flex look at this thread?  Can someone link this to whatever the "home" thread for this might be?

Bob-N9MBR

I put 5 turns in my CAT5 cable right next to where it plugs into my 6300 and have had no problems since.