Upcoming SO2R Board Shots

K6OZY

I snapped some pictures of the upcoming SO2R board at Pacificon.  This thing is a beauty!

Simon Lewis

kind of looks how I expected it to thanks for the pics!

k3Tim

In the last picture, near R68, there is a solder bridge on the last two pins of the IC.

The large white relay nearest the camera has 3 leads that missed being soldered.

DrTeeth

I always find 'boards like those above works of art. It amazes me that things like this can be mass produced - I can watch videos of the process all day.

K1UO Larry

I see it will plug into the Flex ACC port....   finally more station peripheral "flex"ability.

Pat WW9R

Each week I look for the Pre Order form on the website. I can't wait until this beauty is sitting in my shack.

Tim - W4TME

It is a hand made prototype board, not pre-production.  Note the "P" in the serial number.

Alan C

OK, I'll be the first to reveal ignorance. What is a SO2R Board? thx

k3Tim

Hey Tim,

One can tell by the soldering it was manually completed.  Be that as it may, the electrical connections do not really care about manual / machine soldered therefore I suggest touching these up.

Here they use bino-view microscope for this sort of work and verify all connections.  In addition one can use JTAG testing to also verify shorts / opens on a PWB.  Setting up the JTAG testing is not difficult but it can find problems in netlist before production as well as PWB mfg problems. If I may be so bold and *highly* recommend using JTAG testing.

_..--

Greg

Looks nice.  Assuming this is maximized for the 6700 but also applicable to the 6500 and 6300, shouldn't there be two sets of bandpass filters?  Would not apply to the 65 and 6300 with their only one antenna input....well....both could be used with the RX or transverter antenna ports I guess.

Aside from the filters, is there a list of functionality available for this?

Tnx
Greg

k3Tim

It's a rather esoteric term that only took me 40 years of hamming, a PE, EE...  to find it meant Single Operator, Two Receivers. 

Best,

Tim

Alan C

Allrightythen! thx

Greg

Actually I believe it is single operator, two radios.  But in the case of the Flex, two receivers is probably more appropriate...    In essence...with all the hardware switching involved, it lets you operate on two bands at the same time (while only having one transmitted signal at any given time).   Generally....folks RUN contacts on one band and search for multipliers on another....listening to both receivers at the same time.  It is not for the faint of heart. 

Barry N1EU

My question exactly, WHAT IS ITS FUNCTIONALITY?

Thanks & 73,
Barry N1EU

Greg

Looks like it loops the Flex accy port; has two serial outputs for two amps, a header for another serial port (?) and one set of bandpass filters (should be two sets).

There should also be two BCD ouputs (one for each "radio") and possibly an icom CIV port so the system can be used with those amps as well.  It may possibly be that the AMP1 and AMP2 ports can be software configurable for either BCD or RS232.

So it looks like this covers the amps but nothing for 2x6 or 2x? antenna switching.

K3ZJ - Dave

This unit is intended to add SO2R capability to the -6300 & -6500 only.  With the latest SmartSDR v.1.5.1, the -6700 already is fully capable of SO2R and does NOT require using this outboard addition.  See the SO2R how-to guide for the Flex-6700 at: http://www.flexradio.com/downloads/so2r-mode-with-n1mm-for-the-flex-6700-how-to-guide-pdf/  

Barry N1EU

Sorry, but this whole thread is meaningless without at least a diagram showing what all connects to what all.

Barry N1EU

Steve-N5AC

Graham says that the solder bridge is deliberate -- it's a correction to a layout error.  It's a heck of a lot cheaper than spinning the board ;-)

Walt - KZ1F

Ya know what might be kind of fun, especially with the reemergence of Heathkit, offer it as a kit. If it is hand assembled already that would lower production costs and get the die hards a chance to become intimately involved with their radios. Maybe that was considered and rejected or, perhaps, not considered at all.

Steve Jones gw0gei

I thought 4o3o was coming out with this board/box. Good to see it in devlopment but like Barry i would like to see some basic info on functionality even if its just current thinking as i am trying to design my long term station set up for so2r with my 6500. I want to change my current 2 radio 6 port antenna switch for the 4o3a 8 port one in development and buy the new 1.5kw amp so it all hooks together via ethernet control with n1mm and commander for logging.

Jon_EA2W

I´m ready to sell my other radio if this board allows me full SO2R capability with just my 6300!

The only thing I want to be sure is that I´m able to use different antennas for RX/TX 1 and RX/TX 2, as I´m using monobanders that are switched automatically with a 2x6 Antenna Switch.

If I´m not wrong, the 6300 and 6500 are actually only able to work with 1 antenna on RX mode at a time (when you have more than one slice opened, all of them RX from the same antenna), I´m very curious of how this board will allow to use 2 different antennas for RX/TX.

I know there was more information about this board on the flex insider newsletter, but I was not subscribed (now I am!) so if someone can give more light to the 2 antenna functionality it will be more than welcome.

Is there a way to access old Flex Insider Newsletters, or can someone send me this newsletter again? ea2ot(at)yahoo.com

Thank you!

Jon, EA2OT

Barry N1EU

2R means two antennas means two ADCs.  You're not going to be able to do SO2R with one radio with only one ADC.

Barry N1EU

Steve-N5AC

This board provides several important functions:

1. Simultaneous receive and transmit band-pass filtering.  When you transmit on one band and receive on the other, both the transmitter and receiver will pass through a band-pass filter to ensure the best isolation between the TX/RX.
2. Additional antenna input.  When the box is hooked to an existing FLEX-6000, in "consumes" the ANT1 output of the radio and provides in return an ANT3 and ANT4 input.  Form this point forward, this provides an extra antenna input
3. Dual resonant antenna receive even on single SCU radios.  The additional antenna ports (ANT3 & ANT4) are band filtered then combined when in receive and sent to the single SCU in the radio.  This allows for two antenna reception on radios that have a single SCU.
4. BCD band data output for two bands at the same time
5. Two sets of keying, ALC and TXREQ (inhibit) that may be connected to two disparate amplifiers allowing each of the two bands being worked simultaneously to have an amplifier connected
6. Transporter bypass to allow connection and use of a tranverter(s) when not operating in SO2R mode
7. Software to support full SO2R operation with a single FLEX-6000 radio.

The objective of the SO2R box is to enable the many single-op contesters to become more competitive by enabling SO2R capability at a price point that is far lower than the current bar with other radios (more than 2x the cost of a single op station).  So the other indirect benefit is that the requirement for an external box to control two radios is no longer required.  For example, today if you used two radios for SO2R, you would need to plug your single microphone and paddles into a box that will switch them between two radios.  For any sort of CW or voice keying you also needed to use this box to handle this capability.  By providing SO2R capability in a single radio, none of this extra external equipment is required. 

Bill -VA3WTB

It is becoming clear why the 6000's were engineered the way they are, so much can be done with them. And this is just the tip of the ice burg. 

W7NGA

Thanks Steve - great explanation.

Barry N1EU

I stand corrected.  Sounds like magic, 2 antennas simultaneously feeding one SCU/ADC!

Greg

Does the tx antenna have to cover both bands in use or is the box switching between antennas 3 and 4 for tx based on the ssdr tx flag?

Steve-N5AC

It switches -- you will designate which antenna is for which band.

Greg

Thats great.  Thanks Steve.

Jon_EA2W

Thank you Steve!

This sounds really good! I will have lot of stuff to sell when this board will be available: 1 radio, 2 bandpass filter boxes, and one SO2R box!

I hope it will be available very soon. Lot of contesters I know are waiting for something like this from a long time ago, so I think FlexRadio will have lots of new customers when this board will come to life.

Keep up the good work guys.

Jon, EA2OT

Bill -VA3WTB

Is this a product that only works with Flex radio,,or can other radios use it.