What I would like my 6400 to do and how I would like it to behave.

Robby

I know that my Flex 6400 has settings and behaviors deemed to be best for most users by Flex Radio. They employ highly educated professionals; specialists, engineers and programmers. And their management knows what is best for us.

They know how to design and build very sophisticated radios. They have support people who are highly qualified and very personable and polite. I like them! (Stop reading here Bill)

But these people do not know how I want to use my Flex 6400.

In their profiles (a great feature that is now defunct for me) they give me a setting called ‘default’. They imagine that this is the best starting point for me. But it is called SO2R. I don’t know how to use SO2R and my 6400 is not capable of using that mode of operation. So why is ‘default’ something that does not work for me or my radio?

They limit my RTTY bandwidth to 270 hz because they imagine that is narrow enough, but I like 200 sometimes. While I am on the subject, this radio has, what I believe to be, very impressive bandwidth filtering capabilities. But many of the filter presets are not the ones I want, and presets are important to me. These 8 buttons could be more useful. How about letting me configure the bandwidth presets to my own operating needs. You can be sure I would not include anything wider than 500hz in my CW menu. The same goes for the modes. Why can’t I decide what modes are in the drop down menu on the slice flag? How does an obsolete and little used mode such as AM get to the top menu and I have to go hunting for LSB. Who thought that up? Why can’t I configure that menu? I have never heard of SAM. I only need CW, USB, LSB and RTTY. If I decide I want another mode in the future, I would be able to add it. I will NEVER operate my Flex in the FM mode so why do I need it in my menu 3 times.

I bet a lot of your customers would love to have the capability to configure parts of the user interface to their own tastes. Of course they wouldn't have to.

Do you get it? I want to configure parts of my radio interface to my own needs because Flex Radio does not know what I want and I do.

This is software. It does not have to be one size fits all.

Get to work on this right away please. Right after you fix the profiles and the antenna tuner.

And in future please do not sell me things you don’t have. My $299.00 was serviceable but my tuner was not. I would not complain if the web page would have told me the tuner did not work and that you were aware of it. My check did not bounce.

-Robby
HP3SS

PS: I love this radio!

Bill -VA3WTB

No need to antagonize me, I read your post and see nothing wrong with it. You were simply speaking your wants and needs as a customer, all is good. Surprise!!!!
I for one would love more areas to customize as well, that would be great.
 
The only thing that will bother Flex is when we demand that they get to work on our wants right away. As we all know Flex is working on an internal plan and they will not very much from that plan.

Robby

Get to work right away is what I want. I do not expect it to happen. I'm sure they have complicated scheduling issues that I am unaware of.


-Robby

K0FLY

Robby:

You got me thinking.  First of all if you set the RTTY shift to 100 Hz then flex will let you set the receive filter to 200 HZ.  It looks as if they are making sure the enough filter band width to pass both tones in the RTTY mode.

Mode selection on the "FLAG".  If you right click on the the AM mode or any other of the three quick selection mode buttons  you will get a drop down menu, click on the mode you desire and the AM will be replaced with the one you selected.  My quick selection modes on the flag are CW(left), LSB (Middle) and USB (right).  

Gayle K0FLY

Robby

Thanks Gayle. It's always a good day when you learn something useful. And yes, I did close SSDR and relaunch it. It is still there just the way I want it. Maybe I should read the manual.....nah!

Robby

K0FLY

If  look for it in the manual, you would have read a lot of pages to find it.  I have the guide for version 2.3.9, its on page 174.  Having AM as a default button seams like a poor selection, but it does give an incentive to read the manual .  When an old friend learned that I had a Flex, he asked me if I had read all of the manual yet.  

Glad I could help

73 and happy new year

Gayle

Ken - VE5KC

Good one! Thanks, one  small step in the right direction.

73..  Ken - VE5KC

John KB4DU

Robby;

Your post got me to thinking about filters. Which would you like to adjust, and to which values?

John

Robby

There are 8 buttons. Just off the top of my head the following look like good starting points for me. Please keep in mind I am not asking Flex Radio to make these changes. I would like the ability to reconfigure them myself. They are presets. Presets are a convenience to the operator. Since few ops would wish for the same setup, a good feature would be to allow them to  configure the menu to their liking. Or....leave it as it is if that's what they  want.

On CW I think I would try 50 - 100 - 150 - 200- 250 -350 - 400 - 500.

On SSB I would try 1.5khz - 1.8 - 2 - 2.2 - 2.4 - 2.6 - 2.8 - 3.0.

RTTY Start at 200 - 220 - 240 - 260- 280 - 300 - 350 - 400 - 500.

When I am casual and cruising the band on CW I like 350. In a contest I would start at 150 or 200 and try to find a run frequency. From there on QSO density would dictate my choices.

I don't use SSB much but if there is room I might use 2.6 and reduce as necessary.

On RTTY I am mostly contesting and the above would be nice but I might leave it on 200 forever.

Of course if we had this ability there could be changes made as needed.

I have no idea what would be involved from a programming point of view or how it would affect other parts of SSDR  but I would love to have more ability to set up my own operating parameters. 

-Robby

Bill -VA3WTB

Again I agree with you, There was an update some time ago were Flex did change one of the presets because many were asking for that preset.
I liked that ability in PSDR to modify some parts of the preset buttons.
But Flex needs to balance how much time to take away from what they are working on at the time in order to do it.