New Flex 6600 Owner

Kevin Rich

After several weeks of thought considering the IC-7610, FTdx-101D, Flex 6400/6600, and being a previous Elecraft K3S owner I just placed my order for a new Flex 6600. I am looking forward to learning it and most excited about being able to operate remotely within the QTH and also over the Internet.

I am posting just to introduce myself and to say thanks to Mike for all of the pre-sales support going all the way back a couple of years when I was originally deciding between the K3S and 6300 and made the decision to go the other way. Mike has remained friendly and supportive all along and got my order processed and shipped quickly.

My call is K3GYK and I have been a ham since the 80s and my father, now a SK, was an extra and active for 50+ years. I'm sure he would be amazed at the current state of rigs. I'll continue to be reading the threads here but if any of you have any "must have" recommendations please give me a shout. My interest are primarily 6 meter SSB, MSK144, and FT8, HF digital on 20 and 30 meters only because of restrictive HOA and attic dipole antennas, and satellite. I have a DEMI L28-144 and will probably add 432 as well.

Looking forward to learning the new rig and joining in the community. 

-Kevin  

Cal N3CAL

Hi Kevin!  Welcome to the forum!   Your gonna have allot of fun with your new 6600!   

73,  de Cal/N3CAL

Mark_WS7M

Welcome Kevin!

I have a 6600 as well.  You will quickly find you can op all over your house if you want!  FRS make it easy to use your radio just about anywhere!

Mark WS7M

Neal_K3NC

Welcome to our fraternity! Mike could not be more knowledgeable nor nicer. He also is one of the most active hams inside of Flex so you can bet he has done the things he recommends for you! Also is big in the transverter world (something I know nothing about).

The community is a great place to ask your fellow hams questions (since there are thousands of us all with different interests and ham pursuits.)

KC2QMA_John

Welcome Aboard

Craig Williams

You will love it. I carry my iPhone all the time thus I carry my Flex 6400 all the time.

John - AI4FR

Welcome Kevin. And welcome to the future of amateur radio.

Bob KC9RF

Welcome to the Flex world. You will have a blast with the Radio.

Bob KC9RF

Welcome to the Flex world. You will have a blast with the Radio.

Neil D Friedman N3DF

Perhaps a long-term plan:  Place your 6600 at a remote location where you are not limited to attic dipoles and operate from a Maestro, laptop, iPhone or iPad via SmartLink.  Your 6600 will really shine and show off its true capabilities. 

KI4P

welcome to the world of Flex! I really like my 6400! go ahead and download software and get ready! received my Flex, plugged into network and made first 20 meter contact 5 min later. remote is sweet also. welcome to the forum!

Kevin Rich

Neil - This is something I have actually considered and thought about quite a bit. I own the rig and "partner" with someone who has a site, antennas, power, and Internet who could also use the rig. If the right situation comes up it could be interesting and fun for both parties.

Mark_WS7M

Kevin,

Hoping things are going well for you.   I my experience the 6600 requires different thinking.  If you were an Icom 7300 user and just upgraded you might find yourself frustrated because things are just different.

But with help from this forum and FRS I think you will come to see that the 6600 will be an amazing radio for you.

The one primary difference between this radio and really ALL others is the need for good internet.   That is if you want to use your radio remotely.

Remote ops has been a goal of mine for 30+ years.  I started doing remote ops before the internet with dialup modems.  It was hard and very frustrating at times because we just could not support the audio.

Now days even a basic home internet seems to do well enough.

I saw someone mention remoting your 6600.  This is a personal mission of mine.  I live in a bad HOA and while I have managed to slide by with an 80m loop antenna I really want a tower and beam. It will never happen in this HOA unless the parity act passes and I have some leverage.  But even then I'd be limited on what I could put up.

I've become friends with a fair number of people from NIST that operate WWV and WWVB here in my town.   I have considered asking them if I could place my 6600 amp, and a small tower and beam on their property as long as I give them rights to use it.  Most are hams.

The only down side to that location is HEAVY RF.  I mean 5, 10, 15, 20 are 5kw +  30m is almost unusable from there as it is just about the 10 mhz signal at 5 kw.

So another option I look for is some guy that has land, willing to lease me a 10x10 parcel for 99 years and I an buy power from him.  Enough to build a small building and put up a tower and beam.

The big problem is networking.  I would love to find something line of sight so I could do high speed direct wireless but thats harder yet and even more money.

In the end if I can find a guy with a nice house, 220V power for the amp and an interest in having a tower and beam and willing to work with me on install and use (IE he can use the radio alot as I don't have that much time) then I might jump on it.

Remoting the FRS radios is a serious reality.

Keep us posted on your progress with your new radio!

Mark

Kevin Rich

Thanks for the comments Mark. I have fiber gigabit Internet so speed is not an issue but latency might be,  time will tell. The other thing is noise and I have quite a bit so finding a remote "quite" site would be great.

As for sharing the WWV sight, maybe we can put a couple of 6600s up there since you and I are nearly neighbors.  The XYL and I are always looking for acreage north of hear and thinking Berthoud or Loveland would make a nice place for a new QTH. I have a friend not far from Horsetooth Res with tower and battery power (no amp possible) that will allow me to place equipment but his Internet is poor. There is also another Ham friend up in Longmont with land, Internet, and power that is open to doing something so maybe we can all explore the possibilities. 

Like you, it is a goal with me that I am exploring and it had some bearing on the decision to go Flex.

-Kevin

Neal_K3NC

As Mike, VA3MW says on his QRZ page, the better conditions a location has for HF, the worse conditions you will have for internet!

Kevin Rich

Ain't it the truth. Luckily for me, I am a big fan of MSK144 and VHF/UHF digital modes which work pretty good from anywhere.