IC-705 or what the Maestro should have been

Bill -VA3WTB

Ken Hansen

I think you trivialize the effort involved in creating a 'portable control surface' like the Maestro, when you equate it to a portable/QRP Radio like the IC-705. Icom could only make a Radio like the IC-705 after it made the IC-7300. It appears to re-use much of the same interface programming and leveraged off their experience building an SDR-based Radio 'for the masses'. (Look at all you get for less than $1,000 US, it's incredible). Flex builds feature-rich radios like the 6XXX series radios, ranging from $2K-7K US with 'contest-grade' performance and features (The IC-7300 is an entry-level Radio) - what features would YOU be willing to remove to put a Flex 6XXX Radio into a portable/battery operating radio? How many features can you pull from a Flex Radio and it retains its 'Flex-appeal' for current/new owners? It would be a MASSIVE effort to build such a Radio without an existing product design to leverage off of., and considerably harder than the effort required to produce the Maestro. Flex focuses on a particular handful of segments in Amateur Radio market - asking them to create a portable QRP Radio is just as big an effort as asking them to create a dual-band 2m/70cm Mobile Radio for your car. A portable QRP Flex Radio with attached control surface would quickly approach the price of a Flex 6400 ($2K), prompting the question how big is the QRP market for such a Radio. The IC-705 is designed, in large part, to appeal to entry-level Japanese license holder that have very restrictive operating privileges.

N2WQ

The 705 competes with the KX3, which seems incredibly popular based on the traffic on the Elecraft forums. So the attractiveness of the QRP market is relatively easy to estimate. WRT scaling down the existing platform- a good starting point to consider is eliminating the BPFs and implementing a low power final which will lead to a lot less heat and open up the opportunity for a smaller form-factor. Looking at the enclosure I see quite a lot of space that can be compressed.

Ken Hansen

The extra volume is to dissipate heat, I suspect. Making battery-operates QRP rig is not simply an exercise in reduction, you need to tune power consumption, manage heat issues, as things get closet RFI becomes a bigger and bigger issue (internally), and of course, packaging. Add to that, the need for a new design to be FCC certified. Is such a thing possible? Sure. Is it likely? No, not in my opinion - they'd literally have to start from a near blank piece of paper. Re-packaging a 6400 after eliminating the bandpass filters and 100w RF deck and adding a 5-10 watt deck, you haven't really saved that much weight, you've got horrible batter consumption, a completely new & unique chassis, and so on. Now, if the price was $2K incl. face plate, who'd buy it? Who buys it if it's closer to $2.5K? There's no way it would ever sell for anything remotely close to an FT-818 or Flex 1500... I can't see a path to profitability - of course, having now said that, flex will announce a $999 single-receiver QRP SDR with built-in wifi to support SSDR on Windows or iOS devices! LOL

N2WQ

Look at Red Pitaya as what’s possible today as a baseline building block. The board gives you (in software) 8 independent receivers plus an exciter that can power your finals. https://www.redpitaya.com/n86/new-ste...

Ken Hansen

The red Pitaya folks actually turned their board set into a dual-receiver SDR Radio, and it only costs about $2,500.

It is a QRP Radio (producing 20 watts output with a 500 ohm antenna connection impedance (to facilitate use of end-fed, random-wore antennas.

I think the Flex 6400 would be a better starting point than this board set for a Flex portable QRP Radio like the IC-705.

If I was tasked with developing such a Radio, I would leverage off the 6400 product, abandon the idea of incorporating a control surface (maestro), replace the 100w finals with a robust 15-20w set of finals, eliminate the bandpass filters and the ability to use an internal tuner. My goal would be to wedge it into a shallow 1u rack chassis, add an ATU interface modeled after the one in say an Icom HF Radio (an AH-4 interface), and include built-in wifi/Bluetooth for control by either a windows or iOS device or a Maestro. The key to making the unit smaller would require very innovative cabinetry and unique thermal solutions (like water-cooling).

An accessory chassis would hold a 30 amp switching power supply and an antenna tuner (like the LDG IT-100) in a similar 1u cabinet, putting an entire Flex solution in a shallow 2u case, optimized for mobile/portable deployment.

Anything less than that, a fully-capable, SSDR software-compatible device , would struggle to be considered a real Flex Radio.

EA4GLI

Flex radio fixed my license break issue.. Took a while but I am finally on the air with the 6700. Thanks Eric!

Val DM1TX

Yeap! they have great support I can confirm that. You just have to ask.

KF4HR

roger na4rr

Doug

Sal I don't care if you have 8000 post, you posted a lie about me and you owe me an apologize at the very least.

Steve K9ZW

EA4GLI

Really? You still don't get it? FACEPALM x100

EA4GLI

Steve, I understand what the Maestro is and does. I just think it was a golden opportunity to bring a replacement for the 1500. An entry level radio into the Flex world at an affordable price. A piece of equipment, stand alone that can be taken to a field day or a club. I still remember the weeks before the announcement and all the different ideas we shared in this forum about it. I disagree with Ken above, but he raises valid points about the complexity of a qrp radio. Flex just happened to have a qrp radio before they launched the 6000 series, and it was the gateway radio into their ecosystem for me and many others. I still own and use my 1500. The cheapest option today, a 6400,requires a full computer in front of it to be operational. The 6400m is too pricey for an entry radio. There is a wealth of amateur radio operators that cannot afford a Flex radio. I think that the icom will be a great success for them, the same way I think the Yaesu 818 will quickly fade away. I don't need to go to the icom forum to say that. Neither to the yaesu forum.

Bill -VA3WTB

Here is what we know.
The Meastro was never intended to take the place of the 1500 in any way. It performs the things it is intended to do as planned. So missing the boat with the Meastro? Nope.

Flex would have to develop an QRP radio based on the 6000 technology. They likely have talked about it in production meetings but I would bet they felt the development cost is to much in regard to the market demand. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking that the QRP market would support this investment and that the market is strong. But I would disagree. I don't think the QRP market is is that strong although there is a small nich market.

On the other hand Icom does not need to develop anything new. They can simply use older technology from their other radios to make the IC-705.

Ken Hansen

I broadly agree, but would describe Icom's SDR-based Radio technology as 'current' rather than 'older', but that's a personal thing. I agree any offering from Flex would necessarily be based on their current Signature Series 6X00 radio platform/ecosystem.

Ken Hansen

The FT-818 is a continuation of the amazingly successful FT-817, ensuring that all prior investments in accessories for the FT-817 will remain useful for years into the future. It will not, in my humble opinion, fade away anytime soon. Flex has exactly ONE current platform for Amateur radios, the Signature Series 6X00 radios, the 1500 and 5000 series radios are incompatible with SSDR and were, I believe, discontinued due to part availability. Flex can either leverage off current 6X00 radio technology and software or start over from scratch. The hardware in the 1500/3000/5000 series Radios is unavailable, and I believe they gave up the rights to their PowerSDR software after a certain point. Used Flex 6300s are about $1,200 on the used market, and supports the very latest release of SmartSDR - that is an affordable entry-point. Flex can not make a radio worthy of the Flex name for $600-800 - any compromises would ultimately reflect poorly on the brand IMHO. But that's just my opinion, Flex will do what makes sense for them, they know better than I.

Bill -VA3WTB

Ken, yes that is mostly my point, the IC-705 is only a direct sampling receiver, it is a hybrid transceiver sharing with some of there other radios.

Bill -VA3WTB