Connect to two flex radios to a single PC

Steve Bunting

I am looking to connect two flex radios (6300 and a 6500) to a single PC to try SO2R. I understood the post by Tim @flex at  https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/how-to-have-one-radio-track-another to say that V3 can do this. I have upgraded to V3 this weekend, but still cant work out how it is done.

Any ideas?
Thanks
Steve, M0BPQ

Jim Gilliam

I am using 2.6.1 and use two radios on the PC all the time. You just double click on the SDR icon to bring up the first radio. Then, just double click again on the same icon to bring up the second instance of the same program and choose the second radio. Bringing up the two instances will give you two windows of the two separate radios which are controlled independently.


I use one radio locally and the other remotely which is about one hundred miles away. When I am operating both radios on the same frequency the audio sounds "echoish" due to the delay of the second radio's data traveling over a longer path. .


Jim, K6QE

Chris DL5NAM

Jim, do you get also 2 instances of CAT Window?

For SO2R are two different CAT ports needed to use it with one contest software

Chris

Mike-VA3MW

So, while you can connect to 2 radios with 2 copies of SmartSDR, you can only run 1 copy of CAT or DAX, so this limits your ability to control the radio for SO2R and also use OTRSP which you need for SO2R.

As a thought, consider trading in the 6300 and 6500 for a 6600 and you will have a solution that is designed for SO2R. 

Mike

Chris DL5NAM

Mike, what is the difference between a 65 and 66 (BPF i know) in case of SO2R ?

I still using 2 PC's and N1MM 

Chris

Jim Gilliam

Yes, I do. However, and I forgot to mention this, I am using my second remoted radio over a VPN. It is OpenVPN that is firmware-supplied with my Asus RT-88AU routers. I have never tried this using SmartLink in both instances as I get much faster throughput using the VPN on the remoted radio.

Mike-VA3MW

Hi Chris

The big difference in operational modes and cost is due to the 2nd Spectral Capture Unit.  The 6600 and 6700 have 2 and all others only have 1 SCU meaning you have to share a common antenna.  

This means the 6600 and the 6700 behave like 2 unique radios with a shared transmitter.  

https://www.flexradio.com/comparison/

Mike

Steve Bunting

We run multi-2 a lot of the time and I was just looking to try something new as the station is set up with filters and antenna switching which makes it SO2R ready. As we cant have two incidences of smartCat/DAX running we need to use two PCs like Chris does (above).

Spending a few thousand dollars on 6600 shaped experiment won't work for me as Flex doesn't have a good resale value here and the price of a new 6600 is 30% more than in the US.

Ah well..... Thanks for replying!