Setting Up Diversity RX on the Flex 6700.

Kevin Stockton

I'm new to the Flex community and was hoping that someone could point me to a document or share there experience with setting up diversity RX on the Flex 6700.

Thanks and 73,
Kevin, N5DX

Chris DL5NAM

did you check here ? Search for Diversity

https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/diversity-reception-what-is-it

Kevin Stockton

Hi Chris,

I understand what diversity is.  I'm looking for a step by step procedure for how to setup on the Flex 6700.   

Thanks and 73,
Kevin, N5DX

Jon_KF2E

There is a section in the manual titled...

"HOW TO OPERATE DIVERSITY RECEPTION"

It explains everything you need.

KF4HR

Kevin - I use the Diversity RX feature on my 6700 every so often.  You'll find it works best if you feed two different types of resonate antennas to your Flex A and B RF ports, for example a vertical and a dipole, vertical and yagi, horizontal loop and sloper, etc.  I'm currently using two EFHW antennas, one strung E/W and the other N/S.  As for activation, just click on the speaker icon on the Frequency Flag then click on DIV.  As the manual suggests, wear headphones.  The 6000 series DIV feature relies on your individual ears interpret and enhance reception.  I mentioned I use Diversity every so often, because I've found sometimes it helps and other times it doesn't. 

Unlike the Diversity feature found on the Flex 5000 transceiver (using PowerSDR), SmartSDR does not [currently] offer a Diversity Control Adjustment adjustment to help reduce background noise and obtain the best S/N ratio.  Example:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD0V2D5S1dU&t=285s

Hopefully Flex will eventually see their way to adding this feature to SmartSDR. 

Ian1

Kevin I use a magnetic loop that is far from my other antennas. It works but I find its used on rare occasions. Ian

fbrandeber

I have been wishing for that for years. Gerald does not see it as important enough.Without phase control it is of marginal use.

Bill AB7AA

I use diversity reception extensively with multiple VFO's on two 6700's, and it has sometimes been the reason I've been able to clearly copy signals that completely fade away. The wife hesitates to do competitions without it. When signals completely fade out on one system they may be perfectly copy-able on another. This is one reason that I maintain four independent 160-10 M antenna systems separated in polarization and/or wavelength. QSB is quite often the summation of different ray paths and can produce different amplitudes depending on wave phase or polarization.

I also would like to have a clarifier control (as mentioned above) similar to what we had on the 5000, but this is different from binaural diversity as I mentioned here, that is employed by two phase locked receivers with diverse antennas one playing into each ear.

73,

Bill AB7AA

Butch

I really enjoyed using the Diversity Phasing Control with my Flex 5000A and PowerSDR years ago. It sure would be nice to know if FRS has future plans to add a Diversity Phasing Control to SmartSDR, or if this function can be implemented in FRStack.

Butch KF4HR

Bart Haynes

I agree 100% with Bill AB7AA, I have multiple RX arrays for 80 and 160M and diversity reception is why I logged some hard ones last year with the 6700.

Fred Brandeberry

As I have said for years, this is a valuable function missing from the radio. One of the reasons I paid for dual receivers so many years ago. It helps deal with the noise levels most of us have. It is a pretty unique capability not many receivers can offer.

Clay N9IO

Fred I will use Diversity on occasion when there is an an advantage with the difference between my different antennas.

There is a recently written and incredibly simple to use app written by my local friend Ken W9IE named Rxassistant.

Diversity receive is enabled with one click of a button in this app's gui.

Easy switching between receive antennas Ant1, Ant2, RX Ant1, RX Ant2 in the gui and also on two hot keys that require zero focus.

It is being hosted at our club's web site (Kankakee Area Radio Society) I am web person so been using it quite a while.

I absolutely love this app and never operate my 6600 without it.

Give it a try.

https://www.w9az.com/

Fred Brandeberry

think you are missing an important point. Phase control is missing, and that makes diversity much more powerful. With any pair of antennas phase control adds a host of possibilities. It is like having many more antennas to switch to..THANKS for the tip, however. :-) 73, Fred\n"}]