Does your PC generate noise into your Flex when doing stuff on the PC?

Rich McCabe

Its not a huge issue but I get some computer generated noise in what sounds like the audio section of the Flex.  It happens when I open certain applications and randomly while listing. More like a pop/arc sounds. Absolutely, happens every time I fire up slicemaster and it connects to Flex.  Tried it on headphones and have same issue so not in the speakers.

It did not do it with my 6300 and 6500 but started when I got a 6600m. I have a non M now as my first two 6600m radios had issues out of the box.  So basically all 6600s have had issues with it.

Rich

Duane_AC5AA

No problem here with my 6600 with or without the Maestro. Did anything besides the rig change in  your setup when you added the 6600?

Rich McCabe

Nothing new except I moved everything around to get the 6600M front and center as the 6500 was off to one side.

I guess I did remove a small audio amp and Palstar speakers and replaced with a set of Bose companion 2 speakers.  I have tested with headphones but I should try removing the speaker wire from PC as I guess they are tied together since the bose companions have two inputs.

WIll give that a try.

Rich McCabe

Yea nothing to do with the Bose Companions. Disconnected both the PC and Flex from the back of them and still get some clicks and pops in the headphones with various PC functions.

I must just have an obnoxious PC

Dan-N7HQ

This issue sounds to me like a ground loop. Add a stereo isolation transformer between the output of your PC and the powered Bose speakers; about $10 on Amazon. Search for "ground loop noise isolator", I use them between all my line-level gear, including my FlexRadio and a small mixer in my shack.  

Best,
Dan

Joe N3HEE

Could be your monitor making noise.  I've experienced that before.  Do you have another monitor you can try ?

Rich McCabe

Never really thought about monitors. Yes, I have other monitors to test. Actually, I can just unplug them and TeamViewer to the shack machine and check it.

Dan, I have had an isolation transformer in the audio line since day one. But I dont think its that as I can unplug the speakers and still have same pop/click in headphones.

Rich McCabe

Here is a good example starting Slicemaster and is typical to some of the sounds I hear (pops/clicks).  If I mute Flex, I do not hear it.

https://vimeo.com/388995870

Joe N3HEE

That's not your monitor.  That is the a software issue where the audio stream is interrupted when Slicemaster connects to the radio.  I have the same audio pops when connecting third party apps to the radio.  Not a big deal really ?

Rich McCabe

No, its not a big deal but its not just connect. It happens during the operation of some apps.  It did not do it with 6300 or 6500. Was all new with the 6600 series.

K1DBO

As far as I can tell this is hardware issue in the radio. If the radio is sent too much network data (API traffic) it causes clicks and pops in the audio.  It's up to the API client to make sure this doesnt happen.

The problem was identified when the spots feature was added.  The spots features encourages a lot of API traffic into the radio.  At that time it was very easy to reproduce the issue.  Flex might have addressed the issue to some extent on the radio side since then, but I have not tested for it recently so cant say for sure.

Slice Master tracks and throttles its network traffic to the radio in an attempt to mitigate the problem.  Despite that, pops and clicks still happen at times.  Since there is not cooperation between API clients, it's possible that two or more are overwhelming the radio's I/O buffer at once, but that's just a guess.

--Don

Rich McCabe

Good info Don.  As I said it started with the 6600 series for me. And just to be clear its not just SliceMaster but that was the easiest example to show

Nice interview with Flex. Enjoyed hearing more from your perspective.

Rich

K1DBO

I've personally seen the problem on a 6700, 6600, and 6500.  I havent tested to see if the problem is worse on any one of them so am willing to accept that it's possible.

--Don