Roadmap my Dream....

iz7auh

Merry Christmas, I expected a nice gift from FRS for this party, find "under the tree" some new development would have made me so much pleasure, such as an update of SmartSDR and Maestro, with Voice Recorder, digital mode decoding system , rtty inside Maestro, ability to see callsign on the panadapter, maybe connect to a bluetooth headset to maestro but also a keyboard to use only Maestro to do the main digital ways, but this is for me a Dream, I hope that a nice day will come for this I still have some confidence ...

Jim Gilliam

Would you add using more than one instance of SmartSDR for remoting more than one radio from different locations?

iz7auh

of course, I did not include it in order not to create much unease and confusion, with confidence I await a better day

[Deleted User]

Sounds like you had a wet . . . Never mind

Hojon Lee W1JAC

Would be happy with stable software that didn't need random reboots for lost connections
and lock ups! Possible 6500 for sale,can see an Apache with open source software in
my future!

I0JBL - Luc

These wish lists are more and more like messages in the bottle. Best wishes to all of us.

Mark_WS7M

I have friends with Anan radios.  I don't know of any of them that are operating remote like we can, or at least so easily.

I'm not knocking the Anan, I mean it seems like a great radio but as a software developer the open source side scares me a little.  One of my friends that has one has installed one release only to have it just be horrible and had to go back a release then wait until the issues were sorted out.

True this can happen with Flex software too but since it is not open source you have a single point of control.  The downside is yes... we cannot add easily and we have to wait.  But flex does give us an API which is pretty cool.

As far as stability issues the only piece I ever have issues with is DAX.  When 2.0 first came out I installed it and setup my computer and radio on a fresh boot and let it run with periodic use and no restarts for over a week.  It was very solid.

I cannot say the same for Dax.  I regularly have to restart that.

Mark_WS7M

As far as the dream road map goes:

Voice recorder - If you use a computer you can just use Audacity or something similar.  So this one is not super important

Digital decoding - On the fence on this one.  It would be nice but with new digital modes coming out (example FT8) it seems like it would be difficult to keep current.  I could totally see a CW decoder/skimmer type thing.  That would be very cool.

Pan adapter - I think this is where most of the interest lays.  I could see the DX spots like has been asked for so many times.  I would also like to be able to "tag" a signal.  Right click on a signal and you get to type in a small block of text.   I'd like to color code certain signals or maybe even areas of the band.  

Here is one I'd really love to see.  I'd like a new window or panel to be added to SmartSDR.  On this panel you could add buttons or sliders.  Each of these would send out a specific identified item on the Ethernet port.   A connected client could subscribe to these:  "sub auxcontrols"   Example:

Button1 - You could name this and the name would appear in the button.  Press it and a packet comes out of the port from the flex:  button1-click.   Or even better:  button1-down then when released button1-up

Slider1 - Again you could name this.  Move it and packet comes out:  slider1-value:25

The defined buttons and sliders would be saved in the radio.  That is all FRS would need to do.  It would be up to third party developers to connect these "aux controls" to things.

Doing something like this absolves FRS from having to know about or control other shack devices.  They just provide the UI and the network packet.  This would almost never have to change and would open up a huge set of possibilities on what would be done directly in smartsdr.

If this stuff stuff was added to the iPad app imagine the options:

Turn on/off an amp other than the PG XL
Control WebPower switch sockets
Control relays - A raspberry pi could listen for the packets and control things

To me this solves a lot of issues and is easy for Flex to do and does not tie them or make them responsible for controlling third party devices.

Mark - WS7M

Ria

FT8 is not going to happen. WSJT-X is GPLv3 which means that Flex would have to open source everything which they are not going to do. This is why you also don't see FT8 in any Icom radio or any radio from other mfg either. 

Things I've asked for include FSK RTTY, but it's more of a marketing thing because AFSK RTTY on a Flex is just as good,  but some traditional radio ops like FSK RTTY better because it's what they are used to. 

Jim KJ7S

     I believe it's a good idea to keep the specific radio stuff in the radio (to KISS), and the special operating modes outside so that everyone can exercise their personal operating ops the way that maximizes their use for them. I tend to think a bit like someone who has a satellite dish with 800 channels that only ever watches  a half dozen channels but still pays for the entire channel lineup, why? Give me the excellent radio with the streamlined filters,graphics, panadapters, dual scu's and leave the "special" modes to the open source guru's, then each operator can choose their specific modes of ops without jamming up the radio code so much. As is the norm, YMMV...because each operator operates differently. If you think about it for minute, how easy do you think it would be to put all those modes in the software, then you'd want up to eight instances of a given mode ability
within the radio software??..I'm sorry but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me and just imagine the nightmares the wonderful code writers would have, on top of what issues they have now, Do you really want that? It would be nice, but highly unlikely.  That's My Nickel
Everyone have a Happy New Year and Thanks to all the FlexMentors, Code Writers,Suggestors, Alpha and Beta Testers out there as well of course, as the Flex Bunch that take the majority of the risks, and take all the flack that's dished hihi, without which, we wouldn't have the bleeding edge operating ops that we have.  
'73'
Jim
KJ7S

Mike_WB8CXO

Good Luck with Anan’s and open source. I have an ANAN 100D and it’s still software based on PSDR. Still waiting on cuSDR. If you like experimenting and modding hardware you can’t beat the 100D and perhaps other models. Just saying

Brad A. Steffler

I agree with Jim, KJ7S, 100%. I first began writing code in 1969 with Fortran IV. I rejoiced when I got to use a structured language like C, and then C++ while changing to an object oriented paradigm, and got to leave spaghetti code behind. There are so many ways to break code by adding "features".

I love our radio that FRS has given us, for which they compensated for at a fair price (free market in action).  The free market, users' requests and Flex, operating in the free market with a profit motive will determine what additional features will be added to SmartSDR. Adding utility to the software is in Flex's best self interest. Breaking the software is not.

If I don't like the features or lack of them, I will vote with my feet and my wallet.

Brad
KE4XJ

K4ELO

Long time Flex customer here with 6600M on order but my Anan 100 works perfectly.  No complaints and Pure Signal is great.