Dirty distorted transmit signal

James Watts

Is this only affecting 6300's?

Marco

When you see this problem next, can you try tune in CW mode and see if the problem is still there?

Thanks,
Marco

PAØGDW

Yes....I think this is a Flex 6300 problem....and yes Sergey ..ofcourse i did all the Resets.. Soft Hard etc.... but as we mentioned...sometimes it is working fine ..but 80% of the time it is NOT good... Processing ON-OFF is not a solution  ...Mic. dis connected...and then TUNE .....still the same problem.......

George Moranian

So far i have tried everything that has been suggested here with no positive result. 

We all have 6300s, by the looks of it.
It does not matter about what operating system platform we are using.
Temperature does not seem to be an issue
Modulation mode does not matter
V1.5 has exasperated the issue.
Some are experiencing this issue intermittently while other have it all the time.

Has there been any response to the help desk ticket?


George
N1NAZ

Roger Sjölin

Yes I have got some suggestions from the helpdesk but they are not different to the suggestions given here so far. I have therefore now downgraded to 1.4.16.142 and the transmitt signal is excellent again.

dlwarnberg

so my thought about long periods of time I just proved incorrect, within an hour of operation I found it to happen again...

Mike KD2CJJ

Does this issue happen into a dummy load?  Can anyone test while they are having an issue, switching over to a dummy load and see if the signal is dirty still.

dlwarnberg

Mike, from what I'm seeing it doesn't matter, dummy load or antenna.. what I do find curious is watching the memory usage with DDutil, it seems to continually climb under 1.5  another behavior I've discovered running 1.5 is the TX profiles, sometimes when I first start SmartSDR 1.5 it's blank, not default not anything just blank.  I have since switched back to 1.4.16 and have had no more issues..

Sad thing is now I loose FreeDV... 

Tim - W4TME

We are actively and aggressively looking into this issue.  Thank you for the problem reports - they help in our root cause analysis.

Walt - KZ1F

I've noticed the same behavior with the profile combobox.
I'm strongly considering switching back to 1.4 myself. I also can't get WNF to work. I'd add 'correctly' but I don't know what correctly means. I know, not the current thread's subject.

PAØGDW

PAØGDW

Steve-N5AC

Agreed.

Steve-N5AC

"SmartSDR v1.5" tells us what we need to know. Incidentally, the software in the radio is also called SmartSDR.

Steve-N5AC

As Tim says, we are investigating the issue and will let everyone know as soon as we've found the problem. This was not seen by any of the Alpha group (50+ FLEX-6000 owners). If you experience the problem, it would be very useful for us to have a screenshot of your panadapter in SSB and CW during TUNE when the problem occurs (as Marco mentioned earlier). The issue is not (can not be) Operating System related for the reasons that Walt mentioned earlier so I wouldn't spend time trying it on different PCs, etc. Thanks for your reports.

Rick WN2C

Perusing the community site this morning and came across this thread so I had to check it out on my 6300. Well I don't have any bad audio reports but the display shows the same signal pattern on transmit - modulated or on tune at about 10 watts. After seeing this thread I made a contact and asked if I had any audio distortion and was told "no it sounds just like you, broadcast quality". I asked if they would tune up and down the band to see if there were any artifacts of my signal elsewhere and was told no. It may be in the software and how the info is displayed?

Kilroy

I too have the problem on my 6300.  Just now I thought I'd shut down and restart to see if anything changes.  I stopped the SDR program software then pushed the power button to turn off the Flex.  I then turned off the power to the Flex and waited a few minutes and turned the power back on and then pressed the power button on the flex.  It has now been over 8 minutes of a flashing green light and the flex has not come on.  This is a  new one for me as it usually comes on within a minute.  I will power down again and see what happens.

After restarting again the problem is no longer evident.  Will see if it reappears.

dlwarnberg

Tim and Mike, looking over the site it looks like there was a similar issue a year ago with Version 1.2.17.. not sure if this helps or not but thought I might mention it.

Phil M0VSE

I am seeing the same (Flex 6300 v1.5) I also have an issue where I am not getting ANY power out on certain bands (I started another question about this issue before I discovered this thread!)

Here are the images of my tune (set to 10% on 20m first is SSB, second is CW)

Marco

Hi Phil, 

Let me see if I understand your issue correctly. You can power up the radio, and without any resets, you can switch bands and see different transmit behavior on different bands, including no signal on some bands? Thanks for the CW tune screenshot. That really helps narrow it down.

Thanks,
Marco

Phil M0VSE

Hi Marco. Yes from a cold boot, the 6300 will not transmit on SSB 6m, 20m or via the transverter port. I have noticed though that it does seem to transmit on CW but with reduced power. If I then restart both the Flex and SSDR I can transmit but it looks quite 'dirty' and probably explains why I did so badly on the CW contest last night

73 Phil

Marco

Sorry about the contest!  We are putting a lot of effort into figuring this one out. Is the issue intermittent for you across resets?

Phil M0VSE

Don't worry, my CW is pretty awful anyway so I didn't expect to do very well.... I have noticed that when booted from cold, it will not transmit on SSB at ALL, it does however transmit/tune on CW which was why I thought it was band dependant.... The pictures below are a tune on 20m from a cold boot (ssb and then cw again all I did between screenshots was change mode). If I restart it will then transmit but obviously there is something not quite right

Phil M0VSE

I have had another (possibly unrelated) problem this morning, I had decided to downgrade the Flex to 1.4 this morning so I turned the 6300 and my PC on, after the button went solid green, I ran SSDR and it was unable to connect. I power cycled the 6300 and it still couldn't connect! I then factory reset it (held power button until it turned white) and no joy! Help! I have never had any problems with 1.4, maybe that will teach me for installing a .0 release?

Phil M0VSE

That is maybe a red-herring as a reboot of my PC seemed to fix this, still a strange one though?

Phil M0VSE

Sorry to keep replying to myself but I am trying to get everything written down. The downgrade was fairly eventful... Once downgraded I was unable to connect again. After a factory reset SSDR connected and then said it had lost connection to the radio? I reconnected again and it seemed to work and has stayed connected. Tune on CW and SSB looks clean. I have noticed that the Mask field in the SSDR connect screen is blank and i'm sure it used to contain the correct mask (255.255.255.0 for my network) this seems to have started since upgrading to 1.5?

Oxford English

Sorry to say that you can add me to the list. I am seeing a very wide signal in the Panafall when tuning on all bands.

Also the problem I reported yesterday re lockup/crash on 7Mhz has re-occurred.

I have gone back to 1.4.16 and working faultlessly

Tim

DH2ID

Please also check your DAX program, it should read:



I have not been able to recreate your problems and I think that my uninstalling
the previous version including the DAX has something to do with it.

I use my IC-756PRO scope and audio as a control RX and see an absolutely
clean signal. I have checked it now with my spectrum analyzer with a 100W
dummy load and -40dB signal to the analyzer and see a clean signal.

Phil M0VSE

I uninstalled everything (including DAX) before installing 1.5. If the problem isn't occurring with all 6300 owners, I can't help thinking that it may be a batch/manufacturing issue? I removed 1.5 and reinstalled 1.4 and all is well....

DH2ID

Ok, sorry, I've got a 6500 here .... 8-)