Flex control with DDUtils

Jim Osterling

I'm expecting delivery of the flex control in the next day or so and will use it with my laptop/6600. I've noticed the mention of DDUtils in conjunction with the flex control in a thread I read recently.

I went to the DDUtils site and started reading about it but notice it mentions PowerSDR often but doesn't mention SSDR. Is this a problem or will it work as described with SSDR?

Thanks for any comments,

Jim

Jlawson40

Hi Jim, I use DDutil with my 6600 all the time. No problem with both laptops. Just remember to Disable the Flex control in the Settings tab in SSDR, then Enable the Flex Knob in DDutil. . John, W8AGS

Jim Osterling

Thanks for the reply and the tip on disable/enable!

Jim

Jim Osterling

John,

Can you control any of the four slices available or are we limited to slice A & B?

Thanks,

Jim

k0eoo

Jim, there's two versions of DDUtil, V2 is for PSDR and V3 is for SSDR.  Go to this page for V3:

http://k5fr.com/DDUtilV3wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

If you need any help setting it up let me know.

Dennis, k0eoo

Jim Osterling

Dennis,

Thanks, I've been on the v3 site so that's good. Can you answer the number of slices that can be controlled question?

Thanks,

Jim

k0eoo

I'm not quite sure how to answer that question without knowing how you plan to run things and what you want to control.

  The way I use DDUtil, it controls all 4 of the slices I have up on my 6500.  I run two amplifiers, rotor control box, watt meter, 3ele SteppIR and remote antenna switch.  In my case, what ever slice has "TX" selected drives what band/frequency DDUtil sends to the 3ele SteppIR, remote antenna switch, amplifier and so on....  I do not run my Flexcontrol knob through DDUtil.  

So the way I run things, if I had a 6700 I could control all 8 slices with DDUtil.  Some of the other guys use more of the special features in DDUtil which may limit how many slices you can use, but I have not run  into any slice limitation issues with the way I run things.  

I run with logger DX4WIN and for contests I run N1MM+ in a pseudo SO2R mode.

DDUtil is a great utility, Good luck, Dennis, k0eoo

Jim Osterling

Dennis,

I'm running barefoot to a wire antenna so no extras in the system. In reviewing the info at the DDUtils site, it shows under the flex control info, using the buttons with sgl click, dbl click and long click can invoke different parameters to be controlled. This is very interesting but for me, only if I can do that to all four slices.

The user guide only shows settings for slice A or B. Wanting to check if that means only two slices are controlled or if the user guide is not updated. I noticed in another thread of setting up ddutils with flex control on the forum, that parameters were picked, that the gentleman uses, that according to the guide, can't be used with a flex radio. Hence my confusion as to what is possible....

Thanks,

Jim

k0eoo

Jim, with your setup I'm not sure DDUtil is what you need to use, not yet anyway....

if you can use the Flexcontrol app in SSDR for the knob (which is what I use) you can "change active slice" by selecting which ever button you program on the Flexcontrol to control that function.   "Change active slice" toggles you through each slice you have up.  In my case I usually have 3 or 4 slices up so pressing one of the buttons toggles the focus through each slice shown.

In fact that's how I have pressing the large knob setup, each time I press the large knob the radio toggles through each slice I have up.

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I would second that. If all you are concerned about is tuning different slices, one at a time, you don’t need DDUtil at all, as K0EOO has described. Where DDUtil is most useful is if you are wanting to add features that the basic FlexControl doesen’t support, or as in my case, you want to add a second knob. I use it with two FC’s to give me independent control of both frequencies when I’m working DX and running split.

Jim Osterling

Actually I'm not interested in the flex control for tuning slices at all, the roller on my track ball handles tuning just fine. The reason for the interest in DDUtils is that with the flex control through Ssdr, each button and the knob can be set to do one thing but with DDUtils, each button can do one of three things. Although I may not need each button to do three things, I do have interest in more than one parameter per button/knob.

But if only two of the slices can receive this extra benefit, then it's of much less interest as I tend to use all four slices when operating.

Thanks for you comments,

Jim