relax, don't do it...

Greg N8GD

This whole discussion leads me to make a comment about social media in general.  I have always found it difficult to really know and understand what someone else is trying get across when the only means of communication at their disposal is the written word.  Even in our hobby, the human voice adds much to the communication medium, wherein inflections, changes in tone, and even volume lend greatly to getting the message across to the listener.  Written words just can't convey those nuances.  Add to that the different writing abilities of the various posters, where some folks can get their ideas as well as feelings across in the written word better than others, and a lot of the important communication "information" is lost when words alone need to convey more than they possibly can.

I ran a high profile Amateur Radio packet BBS (bulletin board system) from 1985-1995 (pre-Internet), and was heavily involved in posting replies and comments to various messagesthat passed through my system, much as is done on this community.  I eventually found myself making comments that, after hitting the send key, I regretted.  It was easy to get pulled into the practice of "flaming" other posters that was uncalled for, which would have been avoided had I given my reasons for replying more thought and time.  There, it was easy to trample upon others, not really knowing them, or knowing the nuances of their thoughts or statements in their original posts.

Social media can be a great tool, but we all need to realize the limitations of the medium.  Trying to really communicate in a text or tweet of less than a dozen dozen characters leaves much to be desired.  Even with the luxury of more available words on this community (and other posting mediums), we all tend to not get the full message across - both ways.

Realizing the limitations of social media in truly being able to communicate, we all need to do a better job of conveying our ideas and feelings in words, while thinking long and hard about making that next comment!

Greg - N8GD

Walt - KZ1F

Personally I believe history will conclude the consumerization of the internet was a horrifically bad idea.but that genie has left the building, much less the bottle. I do, howrv

Greg N8GD

Walt, when I see young couples in a nice restaurant spend their entire meal on their phones texting or surfing the 'net, I wonder how much that kind of activity and non-communication between those two people will add to our already astronomically high divorce rate.  For myself, I've been happily married for 47 years, and I don't text much, especially when in front of a nice meal and a beautiful lady (my wife).

Greg - N8GD

Walt - KZ1F

I was thinking too about how splintered groups of disaffected people before social media were islands, now they are masses, whether domestically or internationally. Is Apples steadfast insistence of absolute user completely secure communications going to be shown, in history's light as a good thing or a bad thing? I think Orlando, as well as other places will prove we, as a society or even civilization, don't want these people finding each other, esp secretly. As it relates to here though, simply looking at Flex's about box, yeah, the Elmers are 'deputized'. I would think that would imply power and privilege the rank and file don't have. So that breeds an ecosystem of haves and have nots...so to speak. I think that is where a lot of this friction is coming from.

To your point though Greg, yep, that annoys the bagebbers out of me, people on their cell phones in restaurants, movie theaters, cars.

W9OY

What I find monstrously offensive is when discussing engineering concerns someone immediately jumps to screeching about CONTRACTS!! and legal duties where none exist.  Engineering is a complicated business which has many not always obvious constraints and trade-offs, and sometimes it takes some discussion just to flesh out the questions in a way that reveals those trade-offs.  Flex has proven itself time and time again to be extremely responsive to its users needs.  Some times that response takes consideration but often sheds light in due time.  Sometimes there is not a good answer given the state of the art.  Sometimes a change in the code might affect some other performance aspect but the trade-off is worth it.  Sometimes what people demand is a little bit crazy like demanding 0.4 dB increase in power that results several dB degradation in IMD.  People eventually get to an understanding about why things are the way they are but it takes a little knowledge massage to get there.  Sometimes it's not in Flex's interest to build degradation into their equipment.  I like it when someone tells me my audio and articulation is great and my bandwidth is spot on and that clean audio reflects on the Flex brand.

I also find it offensive that someone comes on with a ton of bricks attitude with a less than complete understanding of the issue or is simply promoting an agenda.  When those persons are then vigorously pushed back upon they sometimes complain about authoritative and autocratic responses.   The same golden rule should apply to questioners as it does to answerers.

Social media discussions like any other group goes through what is called a group process.  The group acts as its own governor on any one poster and opinion will tend to moderate as the discussion ensues and often light is glimpsed.  When one is in the middle of it it seems like all testosterone and fire bombs but actually NO BLOOD IS SHED, not one drop!  I was a physician in the Navy and I've seen my share of bloodshed and what goes on in this group doesn't represent a minute of what a couple of Marines experience when letting off some steam on a Saturday night.  

Often if you can put the vindictive aside, and consider in retrospect, a very deep and clear understanding of a problem emerges.  This is precisely what I see occurring if you read through the recent "power" discussion.  As the issues were revealed I saw many light bulbs go on.  I also saw the group come back together as apologies were made and references to the meaning of "uninformed" became the topic.  Finally K3TIM put up a picture of 2-tone distortion as measured on his freakin flex's panadapter!  If that isn't light I don't know what is.  So when discussing "what to do" do not be afraid to allow the group to process.  It's a very powerful means to build group loyalty and brand loyalty.  What I would like to see in this kind of discussion is a means to inject a little moderation (like some ALC) without totally squelching discussion.     

Finally I don't give a rip how Kenwood does it.

73  W9OY 

Walt - KZ1F

Well, yeah, there's that...sort of like formula 1 race cars (maybe even nascar) and Americas Cup race craft. I think I meant consumer but not sure there is a lot of difference. In one facet, it's security vs freedom. When you have both, you actually have neither. Can one draw a line from the fear driving the Trump campaign and the consumer use of highly secure communications? I can. As it relates to social media on here, security and cell phone use was not my primary focus.

Ken - NM9P

"Poster boy for calm?".......but, Walt, you never saw all the posts that I DIDN'T send!  ha!   Or how many times I re-re-edited a post after asking myself "Do you really want to say it THAT way?" 

Sam Johnson

I have been browsing this group while trying to decide what radio to buy/ I like to buy equipment where I can get friendly and helpful support.

Gerald was very kind in his posting to me and I see Flex as a responsive and well run company.  If I have a radio I do not want to waste time of people like Gerald and his staff and would look to the people in a group like this for advice and help before putting in some form of trouble ticket.

I must say, I am a member of many groups and no group has made me as mad as this one when I read posts like this.

I am an engineer and worked for a marine communications manufacturer but dont feel the need to rub it in others face to try to justify my point,   If you want to approach the power issue from an engineering point of view, simply saying that getting power output of 100 watts will hurt IMD and by how much does not fly. Give me lab results and then let me compare those results to other manufacturers radios that will do 100 watts with 13.8 out of the power supply.

You are obviously over impressed with yourself and if your an Elmer here then something is wrong.  You are opinionated and your posts reflect arrogance.

Also all questions should be allowed and only answers should be monitored. A group like this is not effective if people are afraid to ask questions because people like you will make rude remarks hidden in engineering babble.

I see you do posts like this elsewhere on the web so you will not change.  I expect my Elmers to be role models, something you are not sir.

This will be my last posting here as tomorrow I will order a radio you do not like. You can tell Gerald that you lost him a sale and I will order a K3S and I thank you for helping me with my decision.  

I  very much wanted a Flex 6700 but if I have to deal with Elmers like you here I will not be able to use this group.  I know you will have to respond in your normal arrogant way but I will not be here to read it. So fire away and Gerald needs to put people like you in your place as I will make sure everyone knows about this group.

ELMER HA HA 

Simon Lewis

KY6LA_Howard

I agree with Simon.. this is perhaps one of the most civilized and helpful communities in ham radio... Seen it with Icom, Elecraft..don't dare question their products..

Don't try to ever question anything on the Expert Amp board.. I got skewered there for even daring to ask SPE to update their firmware so people could remotely control their amps... Fortunately I met personally with the president of SPE a couple of times in Friedrichshafen and he caused the changes to be made.. which of course benefitted everyone even the trolls on that board.

Sam - if you are actually legitimate in your interest in a 6700  (hard to tell without a call sign and zero history)... then I personally have owned or operated and contested with virtually every brand and model of radio currently on the market in a never ending search for the best possible tools for a contest station...  

The 6700 with Maestro is finally top of the line competitive in the contest world- at least on the par with the K3S if not better..   For ease of use, Spectrum display and DXing I put the 6700 as #1 now...

Features.. some things on the K3S are still better...but not enough to make me want to use them every day anymore..  As I said, I have used most all radios... I do not consider the IC-7851 competitive.. and the Hilberling's performance is easily eclipsed by both the K3S and 6700... in fact I spent time last summer at OK1ML with 3 - K3S, Hilberling, IC7851 and a 6700... Everyone preferred the 6700 and with the Maestro now.. none of the others are being used..in contest..  

OTOH.. I do a lot for NX6T contest station where we have 3 K3, IC-7800 and my 6700... Still have not broken through with Dennis N6KI to get him to dump the K3.
But with contest season approaching and the Maestro finally working well, I hope to make that breakthrough this year..

Like Simon Says  (@Simon I had to say that--Hi hi) - I too am available to help Elmer you --- plus if you are anywhere near on my travels around the world.. I love to meet new drinking buddies...

PS...W9OY has well established credentials as a very effective Elmer...

Walt - KZ1F

I previously thought only the Yahoo K3 board was the 'board' for K3. I've come to discover Elecraft has their own corporate board. Presumably ICOM? I say that because I don't see any of this sort of arrogant, condescension from those two Yahoo boards (k3, IC7300). However, having said that, the reason I am on here is I could no longer take Al's and whoever's SmartSDR board on Yahoo. My impression of those two other mentioned Yahoo boards was they were incredibly well behaved and respectful.

Michael Coslo

Hi Steve - I was replying to K4MT's comment where he expressed  his dislike of  our attitudes and if he would have known about the group he would never have bought the radio.

And its an opinion, and one that i don't share, because rather than allow others to determine what I do, I make up my own mind. Its why I played Ice Hockey when many are smitten with the NFL, why my other hobbies are Amateur Astronomy, where I have with my hands made one of the most accurate surfaces that humans can produce, and where one might get the impression that many practitioners are true misanthropes. But okay, I asked and he answered. Its a personality thing. And different personalities have different needs. I'm cool.

I serve as an administrator for a QSO Party, as well as a moderator on a number of groups. I've been personally told to committ violence against myself, or users express fervent hopes that I'm murdered by someone, and called nasty names on a regular basis,  Its the internet, and even though some folks post in here of the horrible members, this place is a peaceful abode compared to the internet at large. 

Regardless, any moderation scheme must be carefully thought out, as many times people believe that moderation is needed for anyone they disagree with, and occasionally a heavy handed moderator can end up moderating so many posts that people simply stop posting altogether. 

At which time a person might come in and complain that they wouldn't buy the radio because no one is talking about it.

Because determining allowable content is not always as easy as it seems. 

Michael Coslo

Good one Bill! 

As an owner of one of these fine radios for around a year now, I have to say I've never seen such service before. This guys bend over backwards to help, and my other rdios it's great luck to get the mfgr to even admit there is an issue. Now if I can get my financial advisor to allow me to upgrade, ima gonna have a 6700!

Michael Coslo

Still having a few Kenwoods, I still care about how they do it. And from persnal experience,  they don't do it anywhere near as well as FRS.

Michael Coslo

I've been trying to get my folks to dump the K3's for some 6700s. I learned that was not a wise conversation to have, as the reaction was distinctly negative and loud. Whatever, I might have to get a different group of folks.

KY6LA_Howard

I had a lot more luck. Ben - N6MUF - the CW Leader at NX6T dumped 2 K3 for 6300 because the 6300 filtering was better. Dennis N6KI..the UBER leader at NX6T will probably be buried clutching his K3. BUT he is willing to let me run shootouts K3s vs 6700+ Maestro.

Ultimately I need to get a higher Q rate with the 6700 and the K3 will be buried along with the Icoms Results Matter.

km9r.mike

W Edwards Deming was a smart man ahead of his times.

Burt Fisher

Flex employees take weekends off, you deserve it

Tim - W4TME

Thank you for your feedback and we will take all of it under consideration as we discuss changes to how we moderate and manage the community moving forward.  

When the community was started, we wanted to provide a "safe place" where users and interested parties of FlexRadio products could engage with one another and with FlexRadio.  We purposely chose to loosely define community etiquette under the assumption that even if we had differences of opinions, everyone could express them in a mature and civil manner without resorting to snide comments and overly passive aggressive behavior.  

Over the years we have had to expand community usage "rules" (I really dislike that term) to cover some obvious areas that we wanted to avoid for the good of the community.  It appears that our social experiment where operating under the assumption what everyone would treat one another with respect and stricter rules of moderation were not needed is simply not working well and change is required.  

Ham radio is a hobby.  It is supposed to provide personal enjoyment and a break from the grind of the real world.  But the recent behavior expressed here, even after I posted a topic asking one another to be mindful of the community etiquette did little to help the situation. This concerns me and FlexRadio a lot.  So much where it is becoming obvious that some form of community moderation or "timeout" may be needed to stem the tide of ill will towards one another. This action is not what FlexRadio had envisioned or promoted for the community.  And I personally do not want to have to evaluate in detail every post, every day to determine if someone's behavior or comments have risen to the level of a transgression and initiate some level of corrective action as there are better productive uses of my time.

I have read through all the posts here and a wide range of views and opinions have been adequately expressed.  I think at this juncture, closing this post and allowing for a little cooling off time is warranted.  Thank you.