Welcome to the new FlexRadio Community! Please review the new Community Rules and other important new Community information on the Message Board.
If you are having a problem, please check the Help Center for known solutions.
Need technical support from FlexRadio? It's as simple as Creating a HelpDesk ticket.
Need technical support from FlexRadio? It's as simple as Creating a HelpDesk ticket.
Need the latest SmartSDR and Power Genius Software?
SmartSDR v3.1.12 and the SmartSDR v3.1.12 Release Notes. | SmartSDR v2.6.2 and the SmartSDR v2.6.2 Release Notes.
SmartSDR v1.12.1 and the SmartSDR v1.12.1 Release Notes. | Power Genius XL Firmware v3.4.16. | Power Genius XL Utility v2.2.10.
SmartSDR v3.1.12 and the SmartSDR v3.1.12 Release Notes. | SmartSDR v2.6.2 and the SmartSDR v2.6.2 Release Notes.
SmartSDR v1.12.1 and the SmartSDR v1.12.1 Release Notes. | Power Genius XL Firmware v3.4.16. | Power Genius XL Utility v2.2.10.
SPE/Flex 6xxx drive control
Leave a Comment
Categories
- 70 Community Topics
- 1.9K New Ideas
- 120 The Flea Market
- 5.4K Software
- 4.9K SmartSDR for Windows
- 35 SmartSDR for Maestro and M models
- 88 SmartSDR for Mac
- 144 SmartSDR for iOS
- 150 SmartSDR CAT
- 69 DAX
- 279 SmartSDR API
- 7.1K Radios and Accessories
- 5.8K FLEX-6000 Signature Series
- 557 Maestro
- 14 FlexControl
- 723 FLEX Series (Legacy) Radios
- 155 Power Genius Products
- 120 Power Genius XL Amplifier
- 12 Power Genius Utility
- 23 Tuner Genius
- 41 Shack Infrastructure
- 22 Networking
- 90 Remote Operation (SmartLink)
- 50 Contesting
- 130 Peripherals & Station Integration
- 63 Amateur Radio Interests
- 405 Third-Party Software
Comments
is from the Rev. 2.0 Second series manual.
Imagine putting your SWR meter between your internal tuner and the antenna feedline, NOT the usual placement, between the internal tuner and the amp (SWR shown on your SPE Panel). The restriction I spoke of is for the SWR the tuner sees, not what the amp sees.
In my case and antennas, the tuner can see an SWR greater than 5, so I selected a Palstar HF external tuner, instead of the internal tuners available with the SPE and Elecraft amps. I was concerned about derates and high voltages with my particular antenna situation. Others will have a different use case.
The Palstar Tuner is built like a "tank".....but slow...! If you need to change bands quickly, the Palstar Tuner is not a good choice.
My amp never sees an SWR greater than 1.25:1.
Alan
WA9WUD
As a side note, I have my flex timing set to 30ms but I believe the expert manual says 10ms is good enough.....but check. I've never seen my flex radios flash higher like the icom problem on key down, but you can over drive the flex power higher than your original drive setting by over driving with your speech. Setting the delay won't fix this. You have to learn which words or syllables you are saying louder and learn to regulate those or just set the drive back so it doesn't occur. I have my flex drive set so my amplifiers are at least 100w to 200w back from the peak on low, mid, and high settings while on SSB, but you'll be even lower when you go to CW or Digital......c'est la vie.
From SPE Italy...
"when the amplifier sees the SWR jump (greater than 1.7:1), immediately switches to MID without any alarm in the log. But the driving power previously set for MAX may be too much for the MID position, then the OD alarm".
At my QTH a 1.7:1+ SWR spike is very possible since my 80M/160M inverted Vs are 260' long and supported by 110' poplar trees, which move around a lot in the wind. This along with wet conditions does not help matters.
From SPE Italy...
With SWR 3.0, the maximum power handled by the antennas is greatly reduced respect to the factory declared value.
The customer can try to lower the driving power when use the amplifier on the edges of the
band.
With the 40M monoband antenna the bottom of the phone band is where the SWR is near the limits of the SPE 1.5K. Caused by coupling with the 80M array, it is what it is.
In summary the amp is FB if connected to a dummy load, but to my antennas not so much.
He does not run the legal limit because his amp is unable to output that much.
The exciter is a late model Apache Anan. Pure signal is not operational at this time.
Apparently when it trips on high SWR the drive remains high momentarily, when in the mid setting. SPEs position is if the SWR never went high this would not be an issue.
More on this from SPE...
The protection "attack time" was greatly increased to help improve the protection of the amplifier.
How can I be certain that my 6700 will consistently provide 2 watts to my amp? I don't care what the slider says. I'm talking about 2 actual stable watts coming out of the radio.
The least complicated solution is to employ a 50-ohm attenuator between your radio and the amp. The attenuator would need to be able to handle 100W and be PTT aware (switch in for transmitting and out for receive). Ideally, you would calculate the attenuation value to provide your amplifier the drive it needs for full output power when the SmartSDR level control is at 100. This would allow small excursions of output power from the 6700 to be far less impactful to the output of your amp. Bird sells such attenuators, but you would still need to add an outboard TR switch.
The second (and more complicated) solution is adding small gain stage to amplify transverter level outputs of your 6700 to a level that matches the input power requirement of the amplifier. It too would need to be PTT aware and you would need to select the transverter output for TX in a SmartSDR slice.
Best,
Dan
Are you saying that there is no way for a user to specify and achieve an accurate and consistent power output from the Flex 6700? Is that correct?
Now I can no longer depend on any power settings in SSDR to be accurate. That's just great! I see more blown finals in my future.
Perhaps it's a good match for a QRP radio but I can't imagine it being safe to use with a 100 watt output transmitter. Maintaining an output at 1% to 2% of maximum output seems an engineering challenge.