How about finally fixing the Maestro to work as advertised.

Steve K9ZW

Be clear I am not a FRS employee. An Elmer offers solutions, encouragement and if in their capabilities technical support. There’s no obligation that do not have to suffer nonsense in the process. I’ve been involved with what became the Maestro from before if had anything other than a project name. Like since fall of 2013. While I’d also appreciate the added flexibility (pun intended BTW) of the three “demands” they did exist when I paid full price for my Maestros nor did I have some unattributed personal recollection of a promise to create any solutions just for me get in the way of my purchase. And if I set off to remote I’ll equiped, it was my own fault, and not someone else’s. If your cup is only always half full you really are missing truly how full our cups are. Only a rare few could do remote only a few years ago. Almost none could do it without a fairly complex home and remote set up, and perhaps none in the amateur world could remote the panadapter and waterfall. Any Maestro-like device was likely hand built and fragile. Even now, do we have all that many Maestro-like dedicated hardware options? And what there are offer subset of the Maestro features. Is the Maestro and SmartSDR “complete?” Not only is that “no” but BY DESIGN they won’t be. As always reflect on what features you HAVE to have, before buying into an ecosystem and be prepared to be flexible (another pun) along the way. 73 Steve K9ZW

NX6D Dave

Ria has pointed out the reason this problem got past testing, "specific types of environments".   Any small testing group runs a real risk of failing to test the device in enough environments to rule out surprises after launch.  We were all surprised when the dropped fragmented packet problem appeared, after all of the time we had in SmartLink testing.

[Deleted User]

I guess if you don't like what someone else says maybe you should just delete it instead of belittling them. You have done it to others too including myself. I myself am getting quite tired of listening to your rants so I will just hit the delete button. Nuf Said

John - K3MA

Wow sorry to provoke such anger especially when the VP of Engineering answered my specific question satisfactory.  You would think I had shot someone's dog.

John-KC2QMA

I was going to buy a Maestro when I ordered my new radio last May but the Maestro is just not ready For remote operation in one of the more obvious locations, Hotels and that’s where I would be using it most of the time.

For me a PC laptop & Flexcontrol is the way to go right now for remote operation.

John - K3MA

@Steve K9ZW I read you post in detail and you to jump to conclusions.  You say I should not blame Flex for not being prepared to operate remote.  Please take the time to read what I had done below to prepare to operate remote this trip (and most others) and then my comparison to operating remotely with another option I have and do use.  Once you have done that then try to put yourself in mine and others shoes and ask the question why all this extra stuff should be needed two years after the product was released.  Once you have done that and taken you own biases out of the equation my hope is that you will begin to understand why I asked the questions.

For this particular trip I have with me the following equipment and a large plastic tote to carry it.
Two Laptops
One Maestro
Six LAN cables of various lengths
One Network expansion over electrical line box
One Flex control
One 8 Port LAN Switch
One Cellular hot spot
One iPad with Flex iOS installed (I do not use if for anything else)

This is only the gear for being able to connect and operate the Flex and there is additional gear for audio connections.

As I said in my past post I operate remote almost 100% of the time.  Even when at home I operate remotely for consistency of setup and work flow.  I bring this much equipment because I have found I need to bring it to cover every issue that I have encountered so far that has prevented or gotten in the way of me being able to operate the Flex remotely.

Two Laptops for redundancy and also to allow the other controls and monitoring software to be viewable.  Often when the Maestro will not or cannot connect I need to run SmartSDR on one Laptop while running the monitoring software on the other.

Six LAN cables of various lengths.  8 port switch.  LAN expansion over electrical line box.  Are all brought along because a wired connection often works better than a wireless connection.  Many time I have seen the Maestro wireless connection have issues that are corrected if I can establish a wired connection.

In fact in this particular location I am staying at I mentioned they have a policy against entering the MAC address into the network and bypassing the terms and conditions web page.  Well I managed to find the internet modem in the room and was able to wire into the system directly using the LAN cables and switch I brought along so now I am able to use the Maestro with a wired connection in this resort and bypass the terms and conditions login page.  However, the waterfall does not work and there is a black square box in the middle of the area as a result of jumbo packet size issue.

The iPad provides another options should all others fail or if I need to use the wifi connection and login via the terms and conditions web page.

Finally, I have the cellular hotspot because many of the Hotel wireless connection that I can use have such low bandwidth that the Maestro audio breaks up on receive and transmit.  And yes I know how to adjust the display parameter to try to lower the bandwidth requirements.

Now I ask the question does this amount of gear and reasoning for it sound like I am not prepared?  If you still insist that I am not prepared then truly you have no capability to be reasonable.

Now let me tell you that all this stuff should not be necessary.  Before there was even a VPN remote operational capability with the Flex I was operating remotely with several different radios by using a Free software package called RCForb or also referred to as Remotehams.com.  Actually, I still use it today with a KX3 connected.  It provides a backup when all else fails with remote operation of the Flex and when I want to listen while driving.  Although, this program can be used on a Laptop or a Android tablet or phone with nothing more than a low bandwidth internet connection and a headset connected.   I get away with using it with my Android cell phone and the ear buds provided.  It always works and it works well.  Also, I can control the rotor and the amplifier from within the native software.  It easily integrates with N1MM by using K3 emulation so I can operate with contest logging capability.  None the less I prefer to have the Flex panadapter available and try to use it remotely when possible.

Hopefully, now you can clearly see that your post saying I am not prepared is just not correct.  And hopefully with this long post explaining what I have used in the past to operate remote  allows you to understand why I feel all this stuff that I have to do to operate the Maestro remotely should not be required.  None the less I do it and continue to wait for Flex to put the required programming resources into fixing the problems so that using my Flex remotely can be closer to a reasonably easy experience.  With Steve VP of Engineerings answer I will continue to wait hoping it does not take another two years to see the fixes implemented.

[Deleted User]

John . . . That is a lot of stuff needed for remote. You should be able to just pull out the Maestro . . . plug it in . . . connect to a wireless network . . . and go. Hopefully some day it will be that easy??

John - K3MA

To quote Steve N5AV "#1 is, for me, an edge case that I don't feel compelled to address at this time.  I hope to be able to update the current implementation with #2 and #3 fixed soon." 

I have no doubt it will be and I do not think he defines "soon" as another two years.

Bill -VA3WTB

We know Gerald travels a lot, I am sure he runs into these problems as well so he knows about the problems that can arise. As Steve mentioned they have been working on several items and going through testing, I hope that they get most of this stuff cleared up, or much better.

Ria

You don't know that, and making wild speculation like that isn't going to get it fixed. Like I said - there are workarounds, and I know that the engineering team is looking at the issues reported. 

John - K3MA

What wild speculation are you referring too?  Is it thinking that when Steve says "soon" that it means less than two years?

Other than that the rest of my post is a direct copy and paste from what Steve N5AC VP of Engineering posted on this thread.  If defining soon as less than 2 years is as you say "wild speculation" than I would hate to see what you think a reasonable amount of additional time would be.  5 years?  10 years?  Never?

Ria

Yes, saying it will take them 2 years to fix this issue. You do not know that. Come on, that is ridiculous... 

John - K3MA

Ria either my grammar is wrong or you are reading my statement wrong and assuming I am speaking from a negative perspective.  The meaning of my statement in the context it was written was to say it is not likely to take two years to fix but rather a much shorter period of time.

[Deleted User]

Ria . . . Why is it ridiculous. There are things that have been on the bug tracker now for 2 years. Like the ANF.

Ria

It is! Steve said that they have been working on in recently. That doesn't mean 2 years out... 

Bill -VA3WTB

I believe Ria is right, there are things on the bug list that get pushed back in order to work on other things Flex deems as more important. Steve said that they have been working on many things lately and hopes the release is soon. Just take what he said and not read into it.

k3Tim

<deep breath>  The post by John that started this sub thread contained a sentence with a quasi-double negative. Upon reading it the first time my reaction matched Ria's. After further posts I re-read it very (very) closely and see the meaning was diametrically opposite from before. (exhale). 

Be that as it may I do like the 6500 + Maestro combo.  The aforementioned updates would be some  very tasty icing on a delicious cake.

_..--
k3Tim

John - K3MA

@K3TIM Double negative...poor grammar.....I guess it must be,  All I know is that when I wrote it my mind set was in a positive comment position thinking "soon" would mean something in the months range and not in the more than two year range.  Then boom...I get slammed for "wild speculation".  

Just in case I am not saying anyone at Flex said it would be months.  That is my words only.  Steve said "soon" and only he can answer what soon means to him.  I also know he will not answer that as it is against Flex company policy to communicate dates

So how about Tim close this thread.  I asked my questions.  Got a direct answer from the VP of Engineering.  Defended myself against various negative judgement/assumptions and now walk away with a good feeling that Flex understands the issues, and it will soon have a fix.