Has V3 fixed the 4 year old PTT in CW bug?

TF4M

I wrote this some time ago. "I just checked for this on my 6600M running v3 and the radio mutes properly when the ATU is on. When the ATU is set to Bypass it does not mute."

And today Jan 2, 2020  the radio does not mute whether the ATU is on or off.  My 6600M appears to be possessed by demons, when will Flex take note of these problems?

Bill -VA3WTB

TF4M,, I believe Flex is aware of them.

TF4M

Bill, thank you I hope so. 

I am using very large separate RX antennas on Top Band, and it appears to me that since the receiver is not muted during transmit, that my own transmissions are getting back into the radio at a very high level and possibly a slight processing delay, throwing me completely off when using a paddle.   

I will probably take the radio to the local shooting range if there is no fix promptly.
  
Flex should consider the possible impact to their sales if a basic issue is not dealt with in a timely manner.   4 years?  Not acceptable.

Douglas Maxwell

My limit was 3 years and I chose an FTDX101D over a 6600 due to this issue. I use my 6500 occasionally, but can’t stand it on CW, a real shame.

KF4HR

Whether my ATU is on (Success indicator), or bypassed, activating the MOX does not mute the audio in the CW mode on my 6700.

Allowing a 4 year old bug to continue through multiple software revisions does seem bizarre.  The odd way the Flex-6700 deals with opening a 2M slice has no fix (just a work around).  Maybe FRS has reached a limit to where certain problems just cannot be fixed or further improved; perhaps due to certain hardware limitations.

It would be great if FRS would provide some detailed insight as to what known bugs or improvements are being addressed by their programmers.

[Deleted User]

FRS is not going to let us know what is going on. The bugs have been there for 4 years they're not gonna get fixed.Just about any other company works on them almost immediately. We will just have to deal with the bugs. I imagine they're all on that Ratheon contract as there have been no updates in a long time now.

Bill -VA3WTB

Lets keep things in focus here. The last update was Sept 17 2019. Flex will release at least 4 updates per year. In 2019 there were 5. I expect an update soon given the time from the last one. Who knows. The new contracts they are working on have nothing to do with how many updates there will be. Flex has explained this to us.

Flex is not likely to give much information about what they are working on. I have put together some  information that Gerald has given out over the last few years on this subject.
Flex has meetings every Monday to discuss projects, software, fixes. and timelines.  Many things that are on the production board, things they are working on right now could get bumped or stopped, moved ahead depending on many other factor's. In other words projects are always moving. They have to decide what can make it into a given release and what won't. And many times even they don't know what the next release will look like till it is almost ready to go out. This depends on development time, testing, re coding, then more testing. Depending on what it is the testing can take weeks or months.

If we look back at many of the release notes, you will count around 40 to 50 fixes each release. Sometimes lower.

Flex has learned from the past, that if they were to say,, we are working on A B and C for this next update but D G and C was done, people would say,,hey what about the things you said? what about what I think is important? That information remains to be kept internal. And Flex has the right to do so.
So as mentioned above, many things are in constant transition and many thing they hope for do not make it in the next update.
I know for some this is not acceptable. And use this as a way to sling mud at Flex.

According to the Fex engineers, the radio hardware is no were close to being exhausted in it capabilities. And just because Flex has not fixed your personal want's does not mean they can't fix it.

[Deleted User]

I do not consider a 4 year old bug in CW a "want". It is a major bug that no other radio out there has. How about they just surprise us and just fix the bugs as I don't want to know what they are working on.

Bill -VA3WTB

Lets hope!!

KF4HR

Bill I don't think anyone is slinging mud at Flex, just stating facts.   

[Deleted User]

I certainly wasn't . . . Just stating a truth. This is getting real old with the bugs not getting fixed.

KC2QMA_John

That ANAN or K4 is starting to look more appealing as more time passes. It’s not to say that what FlexRadio has achieved is less that Amazing but my fear is the bug list continues to grow as they add more features that people didn’t even ask for and just a few that people did and add that they now have a multi-million dollar government contract that the Amateur radio division will end up taking a back seat. I could be wrong and hope that I am. Maybe their work with Raytheon will accelerate development for the amateur radio division and will see more bug fixes, updates more often? I guess only time will tell.

I am still on version 2.4.9 as it for the most part is the most stable for me. I still enjoy my 6600M and Maestro and plan to stick with FlexRadio as long as I can, and let’s hope that’s a long, long time!

TF4M

I have to backtrack a bit.  Going through all the settings, I just discovered that FDX was activated in my radio.

This certainly explains the racket when I had another slice open on the same band and I am sorry if I was harsh in my judgment.

I have now set a delay of 300mS (!) in the TX Menu (front panel control on 6600M) and I now have relative quiet between CW elements when sending by hand.   

It no longer appears to matter if the ATU is activated or not.   The radio sends a PTT signal to the amplifier when CW is sent, and releases it immediately and the Delay setting in the TX Menu seems to be added to this PTT signal, whereas other delay setting delay the start of transmission..  

This delay seems to be a workable solution for me, although the original issue is how I think things should work.   PTT=MOX with a quick turnaround back to receive. 
  

Bill -VA3WTB

Remember the survey we all took part in? I hope that is steering Flex in their direction these days. I'm sure we all understand that we must allow time for some updates to roll out before we know for sure.
Because of the complexity of SSDR development and weeks and months of testing I wonder if it is even possible to release more than 4 updates per year?

I remember Gerald saying that , sure we can release more often but fewer things will get done in a long run.
The new contract? Flex has hired more staff to help with the commercial side of the business. Flex has had a commercial side for many many years, and yet think of all the ham products they have developed? A government contract is nothing new. These contracts help benefit us all. Did you know that the Flex 6000 radios were born from a government contract? The technology in our radios were being used in a government project and Gerald thought, ummm what if we did that in our ham radios as well? Can we do it? and there we have it.
Of course since the 6000 came out all the other radio companies are trying to do the same thing with their new products, but most are not willing to spend the money on big software development. So they have radios that have a direct sampling receiver but with hardware filters and an analog audio TX.

Wonder what's next?

Bill -VA3WTB

TF4M, I don't do CW much I admit so this is not much a problem for me. Glad you discovered that FDX thing. I know others have worked with the delay timing as well but I hope Flex will work on a proper fix for it soon as well.

Steve London

I am only using the Winkey emulation in a Flex 6700. No hand sent CW. I want PTT to be activated while Winkey is sending the message, and no longer. I have played around with a SmartCAT PTT port and N1MM+, but no success - Flex returns to receive between words. Is there a way to hold PTT?

Douglas Maxwell

Flex broke this to keep the QSK operators happy, unfortunately the contest op who advises Flex also uses QSK. The vast majority of ops don't use QSK as most understand it leads to an early demise of your radio and your amplifier. All you are currently hearing during PTT is ADC static as it samples the open contact of the RX/TX changeover relay (i.e. no antenna). A simple mux is all that is required in the FPGA which feeds in 0x0000 when the PTT is engaged.

dsp_data <= adc_data when ptt = '0' else (others => '0'); --combinatorial version

or

--sequential version

process(clk)

begin

if rising_edge(clk) then

if (reset = '1') then

dsp_data <= (others => '0');

else

dsp_data <= (others => '0');

if (ptt = '0') then

dsp_data <= adc_data;

end if;

end if;

end if;

end process;

If Flex fixes this bug, the QSK operators will moan that they are not happy with the RX/TX change-over speed (which only seems like its changed, it hasn't really). Flex has simply prioritised QSK operators over everyone else and are happy to kick this bug into the long grass. You are in the keep net now anyway.