Keep radio on or power off

Tormod LA9VKA

Rob N4GA

George KF2T

Rick - W5FCX

My 6700 is remote. It gets powered down when not in use, then powered up to use and back off when done... for 3 years.

Bob G W1GLV

Mine has been on for 4 years. Not a fan of turning electronics off.

Steve K9ZW

John - AI4FR

Bill W2PKY

I asked Gerald this very question several years ago at Orlando. He said Dell Service advised him to turn off electronics when not in use. There are some components that have a rated MTBF that might be exceeded when running an electronics device 24X7. Usually run my 6700 24X7 and have gone through a handful of fans. PC power supply capacitors have a finite life and have replaced a few power supplies in my tower PC. So there seems to be an accelerated failure rate of some components by running devices 24X7. 

jwinner

N8SDR

Greg N8GD

Steve K9ZW

Andrew O'Brien

and while on this subject, do we simply turn a 6400 OFF via the power button ? My old brain is used to legacy stuff where we close software before turning off the rig. However today is my first day with the 6400 and it seems the only way to turn it off is via the power button. If using Smartlink on the LAN is there no way to cause the 6400 to turn off ?

KD0RC

Hi Andrew, yes, the power button is the proper way to turn it off. The persistence data (and I don't know what all else) are saved during the power down process. If you have an M model with a front panel, you need to wait a couple of minutes before removing power after the front panel light goes out (or turns amber if you have an internal GPSDO unit).

I have a plain 6400 and power it on and off using a switch connected to the Remote On jack on the back. This has exactly the same effect as using the front panel button. Once the power light goes off, I shut down my computer. When it finishes, I turn off my Astron supply.

The trick is not to power the radio down by removing power.

You mention SmartLink on the LAN, but SmartLink is only for use remotely over the WAN (Internet). Are you operating remotely using SmartLink? In any event (local or remote), there is no way to use SmartSDR or SmartLink to power off the radio.

I bought a cheap ($20 ish) WiFi four channel switch. One channel goes to the Remote On jack so that I can power the radio on and off using my Android phone anytime I have a cell signal. The other three channels are used to select among three antennas. When I am remote, I just leave the power supply on. If I were always remote, I would get a remote switch for the power supply.

Bottom line is that you are doing it correctly if you are using the power button or Remote On jack.

Andrew O'Brien

Thanks Len, that helps a lot.

I'm still a bit confused by LAN use (I have only used WAN once, just to test if it works ). Using LAN via a laptop, wandering around my home and back yard , I am always surprised that the Flex 6400 is immediately active as soon as I open my desktop lid. It's as though it never really was disconnected. Today I stopped using the laptop for 5 hours. When I opened it, there was SmartSDR with lots of signals within 2-3 seconds of opening the laptop. I guess I should experiment with "disconnect", X-ing out SmartSDR, and shutting down the laptop.

Andy K3UK

KD0RC

Hi Andy, When I start SmartSDR, I get the same thing. It is the speed of the computer that dictates how fast SmartSDR will start and connect to the radio.

Once connected it should stay hooked up to the radio, which sounds like what you are describing. If you leave the radio on, but shut down SmartSDR, you will get a good sense of how long it takes to start from scratch. In my case that is maybe 2 or 3 seconds (I have a really fast computer).

Andrew O'Brien

Thanks again. This morning , with Flex 6400 completely powered off over night, I turned it on and a few minutes later booted SmartSDR on my LAN and laptop . As soon as I booted SmartSDR I saw a live panadapter full of signals . I did not log in or anything. Is that normal.

Andy K3UK

Andrew O'Brien

I think I understand better now . I noticed that in the settings I had auto-login checked , so it was doing everything lickity-split .

Andy

KD0RC

Yep, that is exactly it!