Will Maestro limit SSDR developement?

Mike W1BFA in Maine

Sitting here with that dangerous first cup of coffee and firing up the station I was thinking about Flexradio's direction of growth.  After having my 5000a for a long time and growing with that and PSDR and the subsequent KE9NS enhancements and also my 6500 with the skinny client I have mixed feelings.   I have seen that there are a bunch of folks with the M series radios who really enjoy the more "plug and play" aspect and I think Flex hit a good move there for many folks...   here's where my mind started to wander..  I understand the skinny client concept of SSDR but now it makes me wonder if tying SSDR to the tablet restrictions the Maestro and M models have, will that maybe limit what Flex might be able to do in the future for SSDR itself?  Will there be features Flex stays away from developing for the full Windows based client because they might not be capable of developing those things to also run on the Maestro with its limited processing power?  Will there someday be two classes of SSDR, one with advanced features that M model and Maestro folks cant have?

I was thinking about CW decoders, digital modes or basic logging etc that we now need half a dozen other programs running to manage.  My 5000 is gone now to simplify the station and interfaces but I still have a couple of desktops and the Maestro on the desk and with V3 I can farm out tasks around the network and it's a beautiful world but some days it seems a bit much to manage.    in comparison, I guess dipping finals and managing multiple DPDT knife switches while chasing DX and finding the **** pencil was pretty tricky too.  I need more coffee... it will be interesting.  I hear the only way to get the final version of a program is to **** the programmer...  Mike W1BFA

Ha Gei

Robert Guertin

Flex I believe has taken on too much for the size of the company. The main focus right now is not amateur radio, the focus is on the recent government contract. Until this is running smoothly you will not see anything.

Mike W1BFA in Maine

Bill -VA3WTB

Mike W1BFA in Maine

I understand Bill...  my mind was wandering and I was hoping that SSDR wouldn't in some way be restricted in its development to not strand M and Maestro users.  I'm having a ball with V3's flexability. It's a hoot! Right now I have an SSDR session on each computer on different modes.  The old 6500 is earning its keep.  I'd love to add a 6700 here...  can you imagine what a tangled mess two 6xxx's would make?  :-) kind of a geometric progression of complexity.  One other thing I would like from Flex (in their spare time) would be a hacked up version of SSDR designed around SWLfeatures...  kinda like Darryl did with PSDR.   time for my chores!

Ria

I really doubt that it will hurt SSDR development. In fact it will help it. Features like multiflex are designed to bring the maestro console together with other ways of accessing the radios. However I doubt that you’ll see things that detract from “beautifully simple.”

John KB4DU

Ria, good to see you back.

I believe that SSDR is and will continue to be the main focus of the Flex development of the 6000 series. The Maestro and /M models are convenience/preference items for some users, but are not the main focus of the product.

Thomas NE7X

Bill -VA3WTB

Ria

Thanks John. I am around. I lurk. I just don't post as much.

Keith WA0BEU

Great comments!

Thomas NE7X

I purchased my 6400 M-model because I wanted to support an American company, and I did not want to have it tied to a PC to have basic stand-alone functionally, like an ICOM, Kenwood or Yaesu. I thought the M model radio would be completive to these other brands in stand-alone configuration, however this is not case. Flex's main market is for remote operating the radio, not stand-alone. I wish I understand this before I purchased my 6400M.

My 6400M is missing the simple things. Here are just a few examples:

No head phone jack

No band staking registers

Can not set TNF notch easily, my fingers are too large and jittery to set it properly on the TFT, so its useless.

And what really is disappointing, there is a DHCP issue and both FLEX network support and Gerald all acknowledge exist, however they have no intent to fix it because it would require a complete rewrite of the network code. They just tell me to unplug my 6400M from the network as a work around. 🤣

NE7X...