Wireless gods are against me

Ken Golubski

I'm very frustrated right now. Probably my fault for not understanding the WiFi side of things.

I spend 99.5% of the time with my 6600 listening. I have a wireless router, the Flex and a maestro. On receive, I normally have less than .05% dropped packets. So receive wise, everything works fine. I've just used it to listen to the ham bands and shortwave for the last few months.

So field day rolls around and everything went wrong. As soon as I press the button for the tuner, it locks up. Half the time the MOX button glows red and doesn't shut off without shutting the Maestro down. Anything more than two "dits" with the morse key, and same thing. If I try it often enough, the power button on the 6600 turns red and I have to factory reset it. SWR is fine. The problem is repeatable. I simply cannot transmit. (It did work early last May).

The only way I can get it to work correctly, is to use a direct connection from the Maestro to the 6600 (CAT6). I don't know where to begin to look for the reason.

Thanks for any help.

David Decoons, wo2x

Field Day. Probably close to the antennas and getting RF back into network equipment.

we’re at Field Day and everything is Cat6 cable and good switches which do not spew out noise.

Next time bring an Ethernet switch and run CAT6e or CAT6 cabling.

Ha Gei

Looks like RFI to the WIFI Router. Happens to me at home or clubs Station also from time to time.

All that modern stuff we have today is not ment for running in proximity to RF Transmission.

Not a fault of the FLEX , i see that with different Radios which are networked/USB

Ken Golubski

This setup did work before, so I don't think it's RF. And now, every time I turn it on, it goes to the blinking red on the power button.

I have a 6600 for sale now if anyone is interested. I'm tired of fighting with the red blinking power button. This has been happening every few months since I got it.

Email me if interested.

Ken Golubski

Okay......I forgot to say thanks to those that responded, so thanks !!

I did move the antenna, and it doesn't seem to be locking up now. I don't know why it worked a couple weeks ago, and then didn't on field day, but it does seem to work okay now.

BUT..... I still have the same issue of the power button blinking red when I power up.

Thanks again !

David Decoons, wo2x

I brought my 6600m to Field Day. I was the last one to set up my station as I was setting up software on the other computers first. Another ham had run the network cables and plugged in my network cables into a managed gigabit Ethernet switch.

when I turned on the radio I had three red flashes. Panic set in. Turned off, waited two minutes, killed DC for two minutes, turned DC on, wait two minutes, turn radio on - 3 red flashes. Rinse, repeat.

Finally unplugged network cable and it booted fine. Further discovery found someone plugged in all the connectors from my Ethernet patch cables into the switch, including both ends of one cable causing a loop. The managed switch was new and did not have spanning tree enabled. I unplugged the extra patch cable that had both ends plugged in and booted the radio, success!

For your issue, start by booting the radio without the network or any USB cables plugged it. See if it boots normally. Next plug in the network cable without any USB cables, test again.

Moral of the story is not all three red flashes are the same problem. Did anything change on your network since this started? Is your radio set to static IP?

Open a Help Desk ticket. The Flex service staff are very good at diagnosing different issues. Don’t give up on a fantastic radio when the problem doesn’t affect the majority of 6600 owners.

Dave wo2x

Ken Golubski

Thanks, Dave.

No network changes, but not static IP. I'll try your suggested steps.

Thanks

Mike-VA3MW

@Ken Golubski

Hi Ken

I think I talked to you on Facebook as well. When this happens, the radio loses communications to the user client and in your case, the radio will stay in TX waiting for UnKey command. If the Ethernet Switch has issues, it is possible that this is happening to you.

This is why we always ask to see if it happens with Zero power out. If it fails then, we have to look further. If it doesn't fail, then it is 100% related to an RFI issue.

You mentioned the radio worked fine before, and that is a good data point. Next, you moved to a new location with a different temporary antenna and many things can change and you just experienced it. The radio dropping off the network is just the symptom (like sneezing when you have a cold). It may not be part of the fix.

I hope that helps explain it a bit.

73

Ken Golubski

Thank you for the explanatio