smart sdr version 3

Pat N6PAT

I'm not going to continue this discussion any longer.

Until Flex extends me the courtesy of answering my very simple question I will not buy any more releases.

It's very sad because I am probably the most vocal supporter of Flex on QRZ.

Mike VE3CKO

Was sitting on sidelines on this one until now. At the chance of sounding like a cheer leader for which I proudly am, time to chill out a little. Why is it that things get a little testy when a hint of a new release is imminent. People start making demands and in their own little world their feature requests seem the most important and should be addressed immediately. When they don't get the answer the demand, the threaten not buy this or that or do this or do that.
When this happens I always come out of the woodwork and say, "They needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

Nobody is twisting anyone's arm to upgrade. When there is an upgrade many people report on those said features and fixes, either you trust people who report or you don't. Either way as station operators we must make the decision to spend the $199 or not. It is Flexradio's job to develop and implement the features that will drive people to upgrade. I do think they are wise people and already know this so I have no doubt future releases will catch up with feature requests and more station integration, but and new features no one has thought of yet.

My opinion free trials will be a support nightmare that will cause more headaches than it would be  beneficial. The time and resources are better spent on other things.

I'm hoping for several more releases within version 2 before version 3 comes out. Since multi-client is a major huge feature it makes sense that would be worthy of a new version.

DonS

Well said - Bravo.

Don -  kx9q

Ernest

I could not say it better than  Mike - VE3CKO, 
Just one question? Are the "Limited Edition" originally purchased and register, are they entitle to received upgrade v3.x.x. If NOT; let us know if you are accepting payment for the upgrade to v3 at this time.
The "SmartSDR Technology Roadmap" published in January 2014 shows only up to v2.x (WAN Remote)

DonS

I have a "Limited Edition" and that was only covered to an upgrade to V2.  I am guessing Flex will not take pre-orders for software but I may be wrong.

Don

VK7WH Winston

Well said Mike. Winston

Don Stefanik

iF i CAN AFFORD IT i DO IT.

Burt Fisher

Version 3 if there ever is one ought not be the spending of $200 to fix the problems  with version 2.
It ought to be about new features.

Burt Fisher

EA4GLI et.al. can the Flex operate on a WAN with reasonable latency?

EA4GLI

Frs might be in a better position to answer that. I don't feel like critical opinions will be well received any longer in this forum so I refrain from answering anything beyond my personal experience in "my own little world", in which latency is an issue with remote operation through Smartlink.

Lasse Moell

I would happily pay 200 bucks if they fixed the AGC  when using narrow filters. Listening on a CW station having  hard keying and using a narrow filter on the FLEX is almost painful. Turning on my Perseus SDR receiver, it shows it can and have  been done years ago by others.  The difference is simply stunning.

Bill -VA3WTB

Salvador, if a person wishes to speak criticaly it is best to relate things from personal experience, instesd of, I heard this or that,,so that is what my opinion is also. And it is good to make sure we have as much information as we can before commenting?

Perhaps mixing in some praise with a critical comment? If a person was to look back over the year at their own comments and record them, what would the average be. More critical, or praise?

Burt, I use remote sometimes and i find it very good, this is an area Flex is a leader in. Many use remote only. But then again it depends on your connection with the network.

Greg SP7QJF

V1.11.12 no software repair for a year. Dax sql bugs and others are all the time.
The only thing we hear is that the error is registered at number. I will never buy a flexradio again

Bill -VA3WTB

How can that be done Burt? If there are over a 1000 bugs spread out over 4 updates? What you are asking for is that they freez all  feature work for a year and complete none critical bugs.

Bill -VA3WTB

V1 one is feature frozon, but they still fix critical bugs.

Burt Fisher

I no longer can hear my recordings on air if I record a CQ after the last update. I should have to pay to get it back.

Burt Fisher

You shouldn't have to pay for a fix.

Mike-VA3MW

Salvador

I thought I would share some latency readings on my end on 2.4.9.  My remote has some pretty normal internet, but the best upload I can do on the radio end is just over 1 mb/sec.  That does allow me to run contests with an average of 80msec round trip, but I do have to dial back the FPS and the Rate on the waterfall.   90% of the time I can connected from a Maestro A Alpha unit.  This is one of the first units.

Neither you or I can control what goes one between your 2 routers (here and there units), so it is a bit of a **** shoot.  

I also ran a TS480 and Remote Rig for a long time,  maybe 6 or more years.  RemoteRig does use much less bandwidth and the TX and RX audio is pretty light, except for the audio artifact is produced when the bandwidth got constricted.  I was happy to hear more due to the lower noise floor, but the TS480 had an average receiver at best that fell apart during any HF big contest.  AGC pumping, front end overload, etc.  

While your experience with SmartLink has not been very good, I'm not sure you can blame this on Flex.  You are talking about the symptom not the actual problem.  With out in depth network analysis, it is pretty hard to fix the symptom you are seeing.

I can talk about a lot of things that can cause your symptoms, in fact, I did do a presentation at Dayton that discussed just these points.  All you and I can do is fix the parts we own (inside our routers).

Personally, I am not aware of your network topology and I am sure you have done significant work on your latency issues.  I can honestly say as a ham (not a biased employee ), that your situation is likely not related to FRS remote technology but impacted by the data carrier in some way.

We have some great network talent on the Flex Community.  If you want to work through it on a different thread, I am sure there are  many that will help to diagnose what you are experiencing.

Mike va3mw

EA4GLI

Thank you Mike. I will open a different thread. I have done so many time on other subjects and I have had very limited success, so I do not "trust" it will get me anywhere besides receiving the typical share of posts criticizing my post instead of providing insight to the content itself. Maybe this time around it will be different....

Greg SP7QJF

they have not repaired anything for over a year.

Chris DL5NAM

Bill your a employee of FRS or as next FRS Elmer ? 

Burt Fisher

I tried using a WAN twice, first time  I barely could hold a contact second time latency was barely good enough for receive so what are the experiences of others?

Matt (K0KB)

Burt,  The experience here is great.  The latency isn't noticeable and the result is that I operate just like I'm at home.  I've done it from a multitude of devices, locations and connections and my home internet is nothing to scream about being several hops on a WISP to get internet with a max upload of 5mbit that is spotty.

Only problem I've had that I've posted about is that IMO they should do something to improve availability.  There should be absolutely ZERO down time for the service.  The entire thing needs to be cloud hosted with multiple failovers.

[Deleted User]

Getting a little rough here aren't we.

EA4GLI

This is Smartlink



And below same connection same network same radio but on VPN

Al_NN4ZZ

Hi Bill / VA3WTB,
RE: your comment " If there are over a 1000 bugs..."

Since a bug is a defect ( i.e. a design or coding error), that seems like a huge number.  I've seen references to an internal FRS defect list and they do reference some defects by number occasionally.  They don't publish the list but I would have guessed the number of bugs to be closer to 30 than 1,000.

There are a lot of ideas, enhancement requests, requests to finish up existing features, etc but most would not be considered bugs.  Some users would consider a few of the incomplete features bugs but that still doesn't approach 1,000.  

QUESTIONS

• Is the 1,000 bugs your estimate, or a guess, or a hypothetical?  
• Is there a post or data from FRS that references the 1,000 bug number?
• Are you considering all requests for changes ( enhancements, etc) as bugs?

Also since a bug or defect implies an error in design, or coding and something that was missed in testing it would reflect poorly on the team if they really made 1,000 errors.

Al / NN4ZZ 
al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
6700 & SSDR-W  V 2.4.9
Win10 

Mike-VA3MW

Just a few more thoughts.

Mike va3wtb is not employed by Flex but has been honoured by Flex for his help and support of the Flex products.  He is very knowledgable in the Flex product set and more.

As for remote, SmartLink, today I just drove across Toronto (11 million people here) and was on HF the entire way with my 1mb/sec upload at my remote.  It was on my iPhone and an on and off again LTE connection.  In 45 minutes, I had 2 slight drop outs in areas that are very high traffic, but for the most part it was rock solid.

Streaming HF and the white random noise we hear on HF is bandwidth intensive.  You can't really compress it like Video or even a telephone call.  If it was FM, that would be a different story.  Heck, AM might be more efficient on bandwidth, but I have never tried it. 

As many have said on various threads here, WiFi is a party line and expect it to work perfectly is difficult due to the 802.11 spec.  

Just a reminder, this is a technical hobby and things at times do require digging under the covers at times.  That is what makes these forums very helpful.

Mike va3mw

Pat N6PAT

LOL!!

Pat N6PAT

Mike va3wtb is not employed by Flex but has been honoured by Flex for his help and support of the Flex products.  He is very knowledgable in the Flex product set and more.

I asked this same question about Bill's relationship with FRS yesterday. Many times his comments come across as those of an employee or a representative of FRS. It's very misleading and I do not find it beneficial.

Bill -VA3WTB

To help you in the future I will try to name the source of my comments. I have also made it clear that when something is my own opinion I say so.

Any of the info I mention in my comments can be found here on the forum if people would care to look for it.