Realistic alternative to F6k + maestro

Doug -- K0DXV

It's very hard for me to imagine someone needing or using 8 slices.  Just doesn't seem like a realistic paradigm.  There is a point where software becomes so overloaded with information that it reaches a bit beyond what most human brains want to deal with.

My personal impression, based upon 17 years working as a usability engineering consultant, is that while all the information and controls needed are present and grouped together in specific focus areas, SmartSDR reflects the kind U/I design mentality that seem to drive Windows application design 10 or more years ago.

To me, there is far to much area devoted to spectrum display.  All of the radio controls feel crammed together in a way that mimics the overloaded front panels of big radios.

I hope that with version 2 there is a better utilization of the desktop paradigm rather than emulating a radio front panel.  Controls should be bigger, better spaced and, hopefully, touch-enabled.

Just my inflation-adjusted 2 cents.

K6OZY

I agree that there are likely a very limited amount of people who use 8 slices regularly (I am one of those who do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV0kDWdFswc ), when 2.0 is released and multi-client support becomes a thing, I think the 6500/6700 with its multiple slices will become more utilized by the mainstream owner.

W9OY

It's actually very exciting.  IMHO the radio is well beyond adequate in terms of performance.  The loudest thing I ever hear is 25dB below where my 6300 crunches, the filters are 50hz, the tuning is 1hz etc.  When I got my 6300 I reset my DXCC total back to  zero and wondered how many countries/bands I could work in 6 months.  My operating became goal directed but not obsessively so.  I started on June 6th 2012.  On Jan 6th of the next year using a vertical I had completed 7 band DXCC and had 85 countries on the 8th band, not all confirmed but unique bandfills in the log.  So clearly the "Sherwood numbers performance" isn't an issue.  

The power of the radio is in how its performance is multiplied by the way it can  become an extension of the operator, and it is in that set of features the radio excels.  It's not that it can drive a 40in monitor that makes the radio excel, it's the fact that each pixel is 1.5 hz wide and so you can see under the noise on what ever monitor you are using.  It's in the way the waterfall works, that gives extra information about the history of what just transpired, because the waterfall is a way to look several minutes back into time, and it's a way to discern coherence from noise.  I was one of 431 NA hams to work EP6T on 30M last year strictly because of the information the panadapter provided.  You better believe there were more than 431 NA hams trying to bag this #2 needed entity on 30M.  It was the panadapter that told me where to transmit.  So you can complain how the GUI isn't complete bla bla bla, but the power it does provide, I think often goes unrecognized and is critical to making contacts.  It is that kind of nuance the "Sherwood numbers" do not address.

The real fun is in the erector set nature of the system available through the API's.  I can and do make my radio station directly an extension of my vision and budget.  It gives me a way to further draw together a whole which due to its integration is much greater than its parts.  Another nuance never addressed by the "Sherwood numbers" but probably the reason I have so much fun with this radio.  

"The story of innovation has not changed. It has always been a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them and their executives."   Eric Schmidt Chairman Google

This statement describes what is in operation here.  Gerald/Flex has created a ham radio innovation engine.   That to some extent extends to a symbiosis with its user base because it is the user base that literally keeps the relationship alive.  It has always been thus since the SDR-1000 days.   As soon as Flex looses this and tries to become something less, (ie starts worrying about the competition) the second derivative on the growth curve goes negative.  So I wouldn't change a **** thing.

73  W9OY

W9OY

When I look at the 6700 I don't just see 8 individual slices I see the potential to derive information from groups of slices locked together.  The F5K did this with its version of steerable diversity.   

Walt - KZ1F

There was a blog entry  on eHam, as I recall, that was talking about multiple slices in DF application...sounds like a nice trick if you can pull that off without 8-9 antennas. But in other applications, like beacon reception, all it takes is 1, let's call it 'C'. It doesn't have to be full time dedicated to a freq, it merely has to rotate through it programmatically. I could make a case for a third vfo/slice to repeatedly monitor a band for how many uncorrelated signals there are and also check out a host of beacons to various parts of the world. That is way do-able but requires programming on someone's part. I actually did look to see if there was a consolidated list of beacons on different bands, say, for any given band, Asia, SA, NA, WEU EEU ME, AF, I don't believe that app would need to have client gui access as it never registers an event sink for a panadapter display, just a place to 'hide' an invisible slice.

W9OY

Of course it requires programming but before programming it requires the hardware to program, and the ability ot phase lock EVERYTHING.  You don't necessarily need individual pans as you say, but you may want for example 4 raw data individual pans and 4 synthesized data pans which displays the result of the lockup or more complex permutations.  THIS IS WHY I CAMPAIGN AGAINST JUNK "FEATURES" taking over the FPGA.  

The rule of 10X

"The notion of “10x thinking” is at the heart of how we innovate at Google. To put the idea simply: true innovation happens when you try to improve something by 10 times rather than by 10%."

73  W9OY

Walt - KZ1F

Lee, I wasn't advocating FRS do that programming.

Varistor

One consideration to keep in mind is that the science of RX antennas is not standing still and develops rapidly. Virtually all top contest stations have adopted active small vertical antennas, mainly 8 element circle and 4 element square. Such antennas take relatively little space and are far quicker and easier to use compared to what is beng discussed here. Not to mention that adding such RX setup is cheaper than a 6700.

Go to http://www.contestuniversity.com/main... and watch the 2014 videos on high performance RX arrays by K3LR and W3LPL. The 2015 and 2016 sessions are not published but are pretty similar to the 2014.

The Hi-Z site and LZ1AQ's site at http://www.lz1aq.signacor.com/ have tons of details on the effectiveness of small vertical elements RX arrays.

Just because we can do diversity via software doesn't mean it's the only or best way to do it.

W9OY

Rudy sometimes you **** me up.  Beam forming is not diversity.

Varistor

You forget the end goal- improving SNR. The human ear doesn't care how you improve SNR. So diversity is one of the means to get the desired SNR, but is not the only method. This topic is about viable alternatives, isn't it.

Steve K9ZW

Eight slices is nice, but for me more important is the two SCUs of the 6700. That is a serious advantage if one has the antennas to put it to its uses. 73 Steve K9ZW

Steve (N9SKM)