NM9P Back on the Air

Ken - NM9P

Exactly two weeks (and $225) after sending my rig in the lightning damage has been repaired, the rig has returned, and I am on the air....but not until spending over an hour undoing the hosing that two Win 10 updates caused to my SSDR CAT & DAX installations while waiting for the rig to return!

The noise floor on 20 Meters is back to normal and things seem to be running well!  But the band is dead...

Unfortunately, 80 is wall to wall lightning static from several hundred miles away.

Now to check 40 and 6 meters.....

Thanks to FRS Service department for fast and thorough service!

Catch you on the air.

Ken - NM9P

Mark_WS7M

Awesome Ken!

N6OIL

Hey Ken will have a QSO party, mine comes back Thursday. I think cosmic radiation got to mine for the no xmit problem.

Robert White

What hosing, exactly, did you have to undo Ken?

Ken - NM9P

The typical fouling up of the DAX and CAT drivers that sometimes happens with Windows 10 major updates. I needed to uninstall SSDR with the "remove DAX and CAT drivers" option, reboot, manually uninstall phantom DAX and CAT ports, reboot, install SSDR again, reboot, etc... I have only had to do this a few times, and only after major updates. It is a pain in the neck, but pretty straightforward. It just takes a lot of mouse-clicking...

Ken - NM9P

Glad you got it solved. Those "mystery glitches" can be extremely frustrating. For me it was $4 in parts, but 2 hour's labor. Kind of like that old TV Repairman joke..... "5 cents for the little ****....$200 for knowing where to put the little ****." In my case, it was the Electrostatic Discharge diodes that protect the expensive SCU components. They did their job and died in the process.

Jim WA0JIM

Ken who was your service technician at Flex?

Gary

Glad you were able to fix the CAT issue after the Win10 update - the update was on a Saturday now 11 days ago and I still don't have mine fixed. Dead in the water. The last 'help' note I got from FRS was a week ago today. This is looking like one HUGE downside of this radio - I'm not nor do I care to be a Windows expert and its looking like one has to be one. I tried to uninstall - nothing happens - FlexVSP is still there... tried to repair - it said it needed a file from 1.8.4 which I had already uninstalled... I REINSTALLED 1.8.4 and then tried repairing FlexVSP: it said "Fatal error on uninstall" ... if you have any pointers I'm open to suggestions. (there are no ghost ports).

Ken - NM9P

I don't remember. The invoice is packed away in the closet with the 6500 box. I'll see if I can find it on the internet.

Giulio

Same problem here, it's really a mess...I don't know how to fiz it. I tried as you to uninstall, reboot...but nothing.

Giulio IZ3EAW

Ken - NM9P

My procedure is probably a bit too OCD, but When my DAX and CAT get fouled up, I begin with a reboot, then follow these steps... 1) uninstall with the "delete DAX and CAT drivers" option. 2) reboot 3) open windows "device manager" 4) select "view>view hidden devices" 5) select ports, as in the picture above. 6) right-click on a hidden FlexRadio port (it is grayed out) and select uninstall....hit ok in the pop up dialog. 7) repeat for each one of the rest of the FlexRadio com ports. Yes, it is tedious, but the only way I have found that does it. 8) go to "audio devices" and do the same thing for all of the DAX sound devices. 9) reboot. 10) install SSDR 11) reboot 12) reconfigure your CAT ports. That has almost always done it for me. If it doesn't work, there are more intensive steps that Tim has recommended for difficult situations. Hope this helps. Ken - NM9P

Ken - NM9P

My service tech was Greta Jones, KF5OWC

Ken - NM9P

UPDATE: They must have given the "Big Kahuna" a complete tuneup while it was in the shop. My noise floors are lower on bands above 40 meters than I have ever seen them. And it doesn't seem to be simply a recalibration of the graphics. I seem to be hearing stuff further down into the noise than ever before. I am wondering if my ESD's had been weakening from other discharges and just got finished off by this last strike. (Is that even possible?) In any case. My 6500 was one of the second wave of "early release" units. ( I ordered just after the first wave of signature units that got the signed base plate and jackets!) I have enjoyed it for a little over three years since three or four pre-release software versions before V.1.0 was released, and am very glad to have it back. Unfortunately, I have a very busy week and won't get to "play" much until next week. Thanks again to the FRS service department. Ken - NM9P

N6OIL

Just waiting for the brown ice cream truck to show up!

N6OIL

It's here! 

Gary Yarbrough

Ken,
Please contact me offline my email is good on QRZ I have some questions about the noise floor issue ....I also have a 6500.  

Gary- KE5TD

Jim WA0JIM

Thank you Ken she was the service tech for my 6500 which suffered the same fate as yours. It took more than two weeks for mine to be returned but I bought a new 6700 so I think they figured mine would not be a rush for me.

I have eliminated the copper Ethernet connection and switched my new radio to fiber to hopefully eliminate the path that caused the damage to my 6500.

Gary

where do you find the "delete DAX and CAT drivers" option?

Ken - NM9P

In either the first or second dialog box when uninstalling SSDR, it asks if you want to leave the DAX and CAT drivers intact.  The standard answer is "Yes"  but if you select NO then it will uninstall the DAX and CAT drivers.