SmartSDR v1.6 video

NX6D Dave

It turns out that the 4 channel limit on 6500s isn't actually a limit to channels 1 through 4.  As I understand it, any four channels can be selected.  I think if you try to enable a fifth channel (or third on a 6300), the code simply ignores your request.

The code does not provide a way to bind two or more DAX channels to a single slice.  I don't know if there is a prohibition for two or more programs that consume a digital audio signal from connecting and taking from the same channel.  I've never tried such a thing, but someone will jump in with a story in a few minutes, I suspect.

Now I've gone back and read your message again.  I'm sure you can bind multiple programs to a single DAX RX channel, if you run them one at a time.  If you had them running at the same time -- not sure what would happen.  You probably wouldn't set fire to the shack if you tried it.

Burt Fisher

Ken it is so simple it took you around 500 words to explain it

Burt Fisher

Because when I turn it on it won't work unless I manually stop both and re-start. If I leave it in hibernate, it works

Burt Fisher

Howard if LAN  is so easy to setup why is Flex working on 2.0?

KY6LA_Howard

Because 2.0 frees you from having a PC or equivalent at both ends of a remote. WAN.

DrTeeth

Those RAF chaps who flew over the Middle East will tell you like it was like a map after 1948...brown over Egypt and green over Israel.

Isn't it us British who are supposed to be famous for talking about the weather?

EA4GLI

As a matter of fact Ken explained it in exactly 281 words. Close to 200 if you remove the in parenthesis comments. If you put it together in a Letter size page at size12 font it will take half a page. Less with no line breaks.

So all digital modes explain in a couple of paragraphs and half a page. I would like to see the equivalent in any other piece of gear.

Either you are factual or you are just trolling.

Al K0VM

Ken,
  WIndows will allow you to connect more that one 'load' to a DAX Channel output. Thus, you could have 'FLDIGI' input and WSPR input connected to the same DAX output port.    And you can have serveal  program outputs connected to the DAX TX input port at the same time ( but only one actaully transmitting. at a time).  You can control the TX levels in the Windows Volumne mixer control panel for DAX TX or from with in the program.

AL, K0VM

Ken - NM9P

Nice. I can't connect to more than one RX Dax channel at the same time in the current version 1.5. I get a message that says the Dax channel is already in use by another application.

Clay N9IO

Ken NM9P,
If you have the video expertise or whoever decides to pick up the quest
(not I) I would certainly think it essential that a training / demo video be made
showing a simple "basic" DAX setup and use, less the extremes that are now possible
that the advanced user is pretty much already aware of now in this recent K6OZY video.
btw: Chris' video couldn't be any more dead on perfect. Thank you Chris.
But, an ultra simple "basic" DAX setup video (RTTY, JT, etc) to get on the air fast and furious aimed at the newcomer who may be on the fence and mind is still set to legacy radio mode.
"We" already think this way, this is to bring in the rest of the flock so to speak.

I too am blown away at the simplicity of DAX in V1.6.
To me DAX was already simple compared to legacy interfacing but now
this has seriously been simplified much further...
Next step? The stage has certainly been set for Maestro...

Congrats to the Flex staff, excellent product!
I'm just happy to be here taking it all in...

Clay N9IO

Ken NM9P,
If you have the video expertise or whoever decides to pick up the quest
(not I) I would certainly think it essential that a training / demo video be made
showing a simple "basic" DAX setup and use, less the extremes that are now possible
that the advanced user is pretty much already aware of now in this recent K6OZY video.
btw: Chris' video couldn't be any more dead on perfect. Thank you Chris.
But, an ultra simple "basic" DAX setup video (RTTY, JT, etc) to get on the air fast and furious aimed at the newcomer who may be on the fence and mind is still set to legacy radio mode.
"We" already think this way, this is to bring in the rest of the flock so to speak.

I too am blown away at the simplicity of DAX in V1.6.
To me DAX was already simple compared to legacy interfacing but now
this has seriously been simplified much further...
Next step? The stage has certainly been set for Maestro...

Congrats to the Flex staff, excellent product!
I'm just happy to be here taking it all in...

Norm - W7CK

Like so many others, I thought you did a wonderful job on the video and I found it very educational.  I actually watched it a few times hoping it would sink in a bit......

Question:  I'm currently using HRD for logging.  The one problem I have is when adding an entry into the Logbook, it only populates the frequency, mode etc., from slice A.   Is there a way to make it think the Active or TX slice is always Slice A?

Jay -- N0FB

This is not a CAT problem, moreover it is a HRD issue to deal with. If HRD is listening for the change of the Active Slice it could utilize the frequency of that slice. I don't believe that the new version of CAT is going to remedy this issue as it is not for Flex Radio to solve.

Norm - W7CK

Thanks Jay.  I realize it's not an Issue for Flex to solve.  I was just wondering if anyone has a good way of dealing with it.  Lots of slices on the 6700.  When I pick one and have a QSO, The LOG doesn't sync with the slice.   I'm sure everyone else has to deal with this same issue.  I'm just wondering if anyone has a procedure that works better than having to type the info in by hand.

It would be pretty nice if there was a way to relabel a slice as A when selecting TX on that slice.  I don't know if STACKS or DDUtil can do this or not.

Ken - NM9P

If I understood OZY's video correctly, the new DAX/CAT coming in SmartSDR v.1.6 may address some of that.  I am making no insider pronouncements, just sharing what I thought I heard in the demonstration.....

I am making no major changes to my setups until after 1.6 is released and I learn the new routines.  I don't want to make extra work for myself when my time is limited this month.  As they say....we shall soon know.

Ken - NM9P

Bill -VA3WTB

It is becoming clear after seeing that video why Flex moved the processing to the radio. It was a must. If your running a 6700 with everything running as was in the video, a Pc just could not do all the processing. This release will simply leave everything eles behind, not mentioning future releases. In my opinion.

Depending what your interested in doing for some, the radio is becoming very complicated and some things are hard to grasp, but a radio that can do as much as this can, well it tends to be that way. But things look to be very well thought out and in the right spot, so anyone willing to learn should be able to find them selves winning. Imagine doing all this on a Yeasu, could you imagine the menu's on a little screen?

Tim - W4TME

Norm wrote...

Question:  I'm currently using HRD for logging.  The one problem I have is when adding an entry into the Logbook, it only populates the frequency, mode etc., from slice A.   Is there a way to make it think the Active or TX slice is always Slice A?

The answer is no.  The "active" slice is only a user HID control construct, meaning that the only thing that an active slice designates is that the mouse or FlexControl when used will be associated with that particular slice.  There is one-to-one correlation between a slice and CAT.  And switching slice letters dynamically is not a trivial issue either because slice resources are deeply associated with persistence, which is complex enough without the slice designator being variable.

The issue here is one of HRD is not aware of a multiple slice receiver radio.  What you are asking for can be done with the FLEX-6000 API; track the transmit slice and use it's frequency.  You just have to convince HRD to scrap CAT and develop an API based interface to the FLEX-6000.

EA4GLI

Maybe they can post the documentation already while they finish buffing the software to a sun shine! 

Tim - W4TME

Bill - one of the use cases I have tested for 1.6 was an SO8R Fldigi configuration using a 6700 with one slice on each band. And 8 instances of Fldigi - one for each band.  

By just interacting with Fldigi, I was able to hop from band to band seamlessly by running the standard Fldigi macros.  As soon as one instance of Fldigi was instructed to transmit, the slice associated with that instance of Fldigi was automatically designated as the transmit slice, the ATU memory for that band kicked in to tune my antenna and I started transmitting.  I never touched the SmartSDR console even once.  It was very slick. 

EA4GLI

Hi Tim, what about being able to associate the TX RCAs to different slices? Is that part of 1.6?

Walt - KZ1F

Hey Tim? Do you recall Hartford ARRL Centenial? I've forgotten who was there with you, Greg perhaps, but whoever it was was going to, um, provide some test bed to, Rick (as I believe...the owner of HRD now). Did anything come of that effort? I thought I had seen a flexlib in their path. Where I am going with this is, from your recollection, is this simply a 'bug' in HRDLog, as they have the facility to query slices directly? or is it more involved?

Tim - W4TME

That is what we are working on right now.  Doc always comes after the software is complete.

Tim - W4TME

We provided the 6000 test bed...

Tim - W4TME

Salvador - TX Relays are globally associated with the slice associated with the transmitter.

EA4GLI

Could they ever be separate? Like one for one amp and another for another amp, and even more importantly, while daisy chaining transverters in the XVRT port? One for a 2M transverter and another for the 70cm one.  

Jon_EA2W

Salvador´s question is very interesting indeed. If you work in a contest as SO2R with the Flex, I think a different TX RCA should be asigned per slice, in order to send PTT to 2 amplifiers.

Now, if you work SO2R with the 6700, both amps are activated at the same time when you TX on either of the slices...

EA4GLI

I still have hope, based on this....

Tim - W4TME

Well, I really didn't want to get into it at the end of this really long post that is not exactly on point with the question, but the TX profiles have been refactored so that they are associated with the antenna port (not the slice) and the TX Relay settings are just some of the parameters associated with it.  This allows you to operate in SO2R mode more seamlessly.  Especially if you use N1MM

Jon_EA2W

Thank´s for your fast answer Tim! That´s really good news

Al K0VM

Norm,
  FRStacks does have a slice Swap function that would let you swap any slice into the the position that was attached to HRD.    But you'd have to do that before the contact.. YMMV
AL, K0VM