Would like to downgrade from V3.3.32 to V2.8.0

Johan SE3X

I'm having huge problems with "stuttering" audio when doing FT8 with my Flex-6700. Signal seen bumping like crazy when monitoring in spectrum. Monitoring the sound I can hear it sounding very strange and also loosing parts every now and then. Both nearby stations and stations further away send reports and comments about my bad transmission.

I have resonant antennas and about a ton or two with ferrites everywhere. Doesn't matter much if running 50 or 400 watts. No indications of RF or similar problems.

After Mike's last video I decided to start looking at my network and PC. PC quite powerful Workstation with lots of memory running W10Pro. Network all Cat 5 and with router 10m away from schack and then in shack an 8-port Netgear switch. Trx, computers all connected with cables 1-3m lenght and ferrites on most of them.

Using taskmgr I can see that CPU and memory usage are very low. While network traffic look "strange". When starting Flexradio the traffic goes up significantly. Starting SSDR and it increases even more. Lowering everything I can with FPS, rate etc .. and then minimizing SSDR just having it running in the background network load continues down a bit.

When doing all this to minimize network traffic audio improves a bit. But still long way from good.

Not sure what to do as next step? A complete re-install of Windoz and all program? Don't look forward to that at all!

But before that I would like to revert back to 2.8.0 to see if there are any difference. But I can't find info on what to do when reverting. Just install 2.8? or do i have to un-install serialports and 3.3.32 before?

Any ideas and directions very much appreciated.

73, Johan

Ps. forgot to mention that this audio disturbances when as worse are there even when talking on SSB. I use a head-set and balanced microphone connected direct to radio and not via PC. That makes me a bit confused and even suspecting a possible hardware fault with the trx.

KD0RC

HI Johan, You can just load 2.8.0 on your computer (you can leave 3.3.32 in place) and start it up. The radio will ask if you want to update.

Click on Update and it will ask if you want to downgrade.

Click on Downgrade and the radio will be loaded with 2.8.0. No serial ports or anything else needs to be removed or changed.

For safety, I normally export my profiles prior to an update. I downgrade and upgrade frequently to test changes to my TeensyMaestro. I need to be sure that it works on version 2 and version 3 radios.

Al K0VM

Here are three things to try before you downgrade

1) In the DAX GUI.. disable the MIC stream ( if enabled. )

2) in the SSDR Phone panel, dissable VOX ( if enabled.)

3) in the PC audio device manger, disable any HDMI audio ports and reboot the PC

AL, K0VM

VE7ATJ_Don

Hi Johan... when you say 'revert back to 2.8.0', does this mean you were running 2.8.0 successfully before with no stuttering? If not, you may not find a difference downgrading. As I understand it, v2.8.0 is the upgrade to 2.7.6 which includes the new code put into 3.3.32 -- the only difference being that v2.x versions do not support 'multi-login' whereby two different instances of SSDR can run the radio. Otherwise, I think the code, especially around the CW and timing changes, is identical (or at least, pretty close :-))

If you were running OK on an earlier version of 3.x or 2.x (like 2.7.6), then it may be more worthwhile to revert back to one of those. But be careful, there are specific instructions on how to do that.

K0FLY

John:

I have not watched Mikes video.

My station (two Flex radios, Maestro, and PC ) was connected via 8 port un-managed switch, I was not having trouble but I was experiencing intermittent latencies of approximately 165 ms, and a few dropped packets. I removed the switch and installed a simple duo band Cisco router in its place, with the router I see latency numbers of approximately 1 to 2 ms (Maestro network display page) and no dropped packets. The above mentioned numbers were with one radio operating.

With 4 slices open on the 6500 and two open on the 6600, I'm still see latencies of 1 to 2 ms and may see a 7 ms delay once a while, no dropped packets on either radio. No change with the 6600 calling cq into a dummy load and listening to the signal with the 6500. No break ups or shuddering in the 6500 received signal.

If 2.8.0 doesn't fix your problem, I would look network part of you system one piece at a time. I have had a net work jumper cable cause me problems and the un managed switch could have caused problems if I had left it connected.

Hope this helps

Gayle K0FLY

John KB4DU

Per Mike, getting a network to work is easy, getting it to work well can be a challenge. My 1Gb switch was replaced with a 100 Mb switch with much improved network performance.

WX7Y

John, what brand / Model of 1GB switch did you have problems with?

Johan SE3X

Tnx for advice, much appreciated!

Len; I will do that and see if it make any difference with network load.

Al; done that ;)

Don; never had any reports of bad audio in FT8 when on V2. That's why I might want to try to revert. Most "extras" in V3 not so important to me. I tend to upgrade just because ..

Gayle; having good experience with Netgear, but you never know. I will borrow a Cisco or similar switch if nothing else helps and see if it make any difference. Have tested cabling with my test tool and they seem fine. But again, you never know.

John; yes I have seen comments about giga switches not performing as they should. This netgear is a 10/100 auto switching. Should hopefully be OK.

I will try out to downgrade and see it it make any difference. Otherwise I will try another switch and even another PC, clean install with Win10Pro.

If nothing else helps .. I'll submit a ticket to see what support says. I can't rule out any hardware fault on the 6700 yet.

Thanks everyone for good advice!

Johan

Al K0VM

Al K0VM

Johan,

At least one party reported problems using MS edge browser with DAX and removed Edge from his PC... But I have not had a problem with Edge.

AL, K0VM

Johan SE3X

Hi Al, never use, or used, MS Edge, only Chrome. But I think there is a way to un-install Edge? Might give it a try. Thanks.

Johan SE3X

As it is now, however much I like my Flexradio, the closer I get to put it on the transfer list. The little and cheap FTDX-10 l have had for a few months, is amazing. Much more and I might go for a FTDX-101 instead. Having a not so nice feeling, never thought I would say that, that Flex is slipping behind.

Ron Koenig

V2.8 = 3.3.32 without Multiflex. You would be swapping to the same thing.

Revert back to 3.2.39 if you want to get away from the the the ssttuttering and other abnormal behaviors.

Flex got way behind with 2 years of no resources on the ham side. It was a smart business decision but not so great for us. All indications are that they now have engineering resources attempting to get it back on track. I remain optomistic. That have some brilliant minds working on it .

Ron, WV4P

Johan SE3X

Switched to brand new factory made patchcables. Then tried another switch, no difference in network traffic or behavior.

Downgraded per Tim's instructions to 2.8.0. Overall network traffic went down a bit. Less functionality (Multiflex f.ex) that might create traffic perhaps. I have played around a lot with DAX and WSJT-x setting as well. But still no difference.

Radio made a trip to Norbert in Germany november 2020. I guess it might be time again. A very very expensive "pleasure", just shipping back and forth are appr. 150+ US dollar.

I will put in a ticket before monday and see what support says?

Dan Trainor

Just as a side note...I have found a program called GlassWire that has features that are very good for monitoring your network traffic and bandwidth usage. Great visual representations. Very useful for debugging. Here is URL: https://www.glasswire.com/features/

Johan SE3X

Thanks Dan, I use another network monitor program. But I will give it a try. Can never try to much ;)

Johan

Dan Trainor

Your Welcome Johan. Yeah, another tool for the tool box. Here is more info for others:

Visual Network Monitoring

Use GlassWire's simple to use interface to view all your past and present network activity on a graph. Click the graph to see what applications initiated the incoming or outgoing bandwidth and instantly see what hosts the applications were communicating with. Hosts are automatically resolved and also include their country of origin. Click the Apps and Traffic options to break down network activity by applications and traffic types.

Bandwidth Usage Monitor

Keeping track of your daily, weekly, or monthly bandwidth usage is easy with GlassWire. Go to the usage tab to see what apps, traffic, or hosts are using the most bandwidth. See something strange? Click the icon of the app or traffic type to see more details about where your bandwidth was going along with any available geoip country ip information. Please keep in mind that GlassWire only keeps track of bandwidth for the computer and server it's installed on and not total bandwidth usage on your network.

Al_NN4ZZ

Johan wrote: " ...never use, or used, MS Edge, only Chrome. But I think there is a way to un-install Edge? Might give it a try. "

I don't use it either and have un-installed it. Why un-install if you don't use it? -- Edge can start up on it's own when you reboot or at other times when you access certain types of files. One way to check is to use the "task manager" and look to see if it is running. If so it will show up and you may see it has several entries, not necessarily using a lot of processing power but holding memory. There are a number of reports on the internet about Edge causing issues for the sound system / sound drivers.

Although some say not to un-install it, many say it is not a problem as long as you don't have it set as the default program for browsing or other file access. If you decide to un-install it you can google for the steps needed for your version of Windows.

This may or may not address the issues but it is one less thing...BTW I'm still on V2.4.10 with none of the various CW issues that have been reported in some later versions.

Regards, Al / NN4ZZ

al (at) nn4zz (dot) com

6700 Win10 Pro V2004 -- SSDR V2.4.10

Johan SE3X

To wrap it up then after I think I have found the problem. One of my first thoughts was RFI. Didn't think after a lot of experimentation that was the problem. But it seems to be RFI anyway. I have tried a lot and learnt even more about my set-up and after re-arranging and moving stuff around, I can't see this issue anymore. I suspect that USB/RS-232 between Expert amp and Trx might have picked up RFI. Or perhaps it was the similar cable between amplifier and my computer.

With my old tube amp, moving Trx, and minimum cabling between amp and Trx, no more distortion of audio. I will leave it like this and run for a while to see if I'm rid of the problem long term. I did have distortion of audi even running barefoot before. Today I can run 100 watts and no problem.

It's a strange world this computerized SDR radio and PC world we live in today 😎

Johan, SE3X

K0FLY

Hi John:

Glad you found the problem. I have been having a problem here using 6 meter FT-8. I could hear stations but I was making few QSOs. Yesterday I found that my audio input on the FLex VU meter had crept up to about -2 (peak indicator), normally I run it at -5 to- 7. I turned DAX drive down to -5 and I started making contacts and getting good signal reports. My audio drive is now set at -10 and working FT-8 is working well.

HF FT-8/4 was working just fine, but 6 meters was not. I treat my DAX as set and forget, the only thing that changed was that I upgraded from 2.7.6 to 2.8.0 software. There may be a little bit more gain in 2.8.0, who knows.

After finding my problem I was wondering is you were over driving your audio giving you the distortion.

Gayle K0FLY.

Johan SE3X

Hi Gayle

I have found that for me Best Practice when doing FT4/FT8 is to set DAX to 100% and then use the setting in WSJTx to get a signal on SSDR a bit below red. Thunderstorm here at the moment, so everything switched of. Can't give any numbers now. But I have no problem, never had, when doing like this.

I have read here about several others doing in the same way, DAX full and then control level in WSJTx.

My 6700 seems to be back on the playing field. He's safe from ending up on the transferlist for the time being 😁

Johan, SE3X