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New Sherwood 6700 and 6300 tests

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Answers

  • Lee - N2LEE
    Lee - N2LEE Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    That's why I rotate and polish the tubes every month.
  • Norm - W7CK
    Norm - W7CK Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Thank you all very much for the explanations and links.  That really helps!
  • Gopro
    Gopro Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Paul,
    you're absolutely right!

  • Duane_AC5AA
    Duane_AC5AA Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Hi Gerald - was this one of the user settings available on the SSDR panel, or was it an "inside the code" setting that users can't adjust?
  • Gerald-K5SDR
    Gerald-K5SDR FlexRadio Employee ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    It's hard coded in the radio code.  There is no reason for the user to adjust because it requires lab equipment to verify the settings.  There are multiple registers that interact so you have to know what you are doing.
  • K1UO Larry
    K1UO Larry Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Does this software fix have a tracking number?
    73,
  • Ken - NM9P
    Ken - NM9P Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Excellent! My 6500 with even better IMD performance than before!
  • Al_NN4ZZ
    Al_NN4ZZ Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Gerald,
    Great news.   Was the firmware change that affected the performance related to a specific enhancement or bug fix in one of the previous releases?  

    I suggested that Rob may want to start adding the software version to the footnotes in his table and I think he is going to do that.   Especially with SDRs I think this is a good idea.     

    As was noted earlier, the difference is probably not noticeable to the users in most cases but it is nice to get the best performance possible and it's also nice stay at the top of the pile in Rob's table.

    Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
    al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
    SSDR / DAX / CAT/ 6700 -  V 1.10.16
    Win10




  • Ria
    Ria Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Or just put it next to the radio name and date. 

    Eg. instead of FlexRadio Systems 
    6700 
    Hardware Updated

    Something like 
    FlexRadio Systems 
    6700 
    H/W Updated , S/W v1.10.16
  • Al_NN4ZZ
    Al_NN4ZZ Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Ria,
    Good idea, I like that even better....

    Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
    al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
    SSDR / DAX / CAT/ 6700 -  V 1.10.16
    Win10
  • Rick
    Rick Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    This is good news, I hope, as last night I ran what would be termed by an engineer a crude experiment using the radios in my shack at present - Flex 6300 and 5000A, K3 (with some S model upgrades), KX3, and Icom 9100. I recorded noise floors using the S meters on 80, 40, and 30 meters, ensuring that filters, preamps etc. were set to be comparable on all 5 radios. I found the noise level on my 6300 to be 2-3 S units higher on 40 and 30 than any of the other radios, even the somewhat long in the tooth 9100. The Icom however did not handle the peak static crashes as well as any of the other radios especially on 80 and 40m. I hope this software fix Gerald has mentioned improves this situation. 
    Rick, W2JAZ
  • Walt
    Walt Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    And I hope this type of exhaustive testing is added to the alpha testing process so with every future software release, the user has confidence that there has not been any adverse changes in performance.

    Cheers
  • Ria
    Ria Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    We do test new versions exhaustively, but not everyone has access to Rob Sherwood's equipment and expertise, and Flex's lab only has so many (human) resources. So we're not going to catch every last little thing but performance tweaks and deficiencies are definitely noticed in real world conditions. So this essentially means that something which doesn't affect real world performance won't be noticed by most Alpha testers. The good news is that it won't be noticed by anyone else, either. 

    Ria, N2RJ
    Alpha team
  • Steve Gw0gei
    Steve Gw0gei Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    And I for one certainly appreciate the efforts of. The alpha team in trying to ensure that the end product released to users is as near perfect as possible. For those of us that regularly contest with a flex 6000 radio that's really important and has given me the confidence, after a few cycles , to upgrade within hours of a new release rather than delaying trying it for fear of bugs impacting on one of my series contest results. This reliability helped me gain another hf championship win in rsgb 2016 series and 2017 series is going well too so far. Looking forward to some better close in performances from the next release now. Keep up the good work. 73 Steve gw0gei / gw9j
  • Walt
    Walt Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    I am sorry that I assumed the alpha testing was the factory testing.  I would never expect anyone in the field to have the same test equipment.

    So let me re-phrase that to mean factory-testing.  I expect the factory to make sure that every software release does not reduce the performance of the radio.  I purchased the radio based on specifications and third-party performance testing and I would like the radio to maintain that during its life-cycle.

    My 2 cents - I am heading to the field tomorrow so no more chatter from me on the topic.

    Cheers and two pints, please . .


  • James Del Principe
    James Del Principe Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Gerald, could this result in a future SW release for all of us to benefit?   I have a 6500 running 1.10.16 non-beta. Is this a candidate?     73, Jim
  • Tim - W4TME
    Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
    edited March 2017
    Yes, it is possible that a future software release will contain logic changes to benefit all FLEX-6000 owners once we have had an opportunity to fully vet the change. 
  • Ria
    Ria Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Hi Walt,

    No need to apologize. But now you know that the Alpha team is made up of real world users. We have power users and regular users so we have a good cross-section. The Flex development team, Tim, Gerald and the rest of the team are very attentive to any issues we may report. We also read the community postings and try to reproduce bugs that are reported here. There is a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes (most of it by the dev team). We are not employees but we are enthusiasts who have a deep interest in the success of the product. 

    Gerald taking a close look at the Sherwood results as well our discussions in the thread and communicating directly with all parties involved shows that he also cares about the performance of the radio very much, as I am sure you do. I am confident that the new fixes discussed by him will bring the radio up to the top notch spec that Flex users have grown accustomed to.

    Ria, N2RJ
    Alpha team
  • Gerald-K5SDR
    Gerald-K5SDR FlexRadio Employee ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Oops.  I forgot to recommend that everyone read the article by Joel Hallis, W1ZR, in the June 2010 QST titled, "Receiver Sensitivity -- Can You Have Too Much?"  
    Gerald
  • Al_NN4ZZ
    Al_NN4ZZ Member ✭✭✭
    edited April 2017
    Gerald, Thanks for all the details and information. The only thing that remains a mystery to me (and I may have missed something that explains it) is why the numbers would have changed when Rob did his tests. It sounds like the settings you discovered are new. If there are no firmware changes that account for it and no hardware changes then why did the numbers change when Rob teseted the same radio at different times? Regards, Al / NN4ZZ
  • VE7ATJ_Don
    VE7ATJ_Don Member ✭✭✭
    edited April 2017
    Personally, I think this is GREAT news -- that problem was due to sub-optimal settings which can be populated to our machines via a firmware upgrade!  Way to go, Gerald and the Flex team.
    So, now the question is whether the new settings will show up in 1.11 or in 2.x :-)

    Don

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