On a 6600M, is there a way to lock a slice to an antenna?

James Charlton

My rig is a 6600M with an PGXL and TGXL followed by a non-Flex antenna switch.

Is there a way to ensure that transmit ant 1 and receive ant 1 always stay connected to Slice A and transmit ant 2 and receive ant 2 always stay connected to Slice B regardless of mode or band selected?

Regards,

Jim Charlton AD0AB

KM4CQG

Jim

Did you try using the Profile SO2R it should do that for you.

AS long as you don't change anything on the Slice A or B antenna's you should be good.

I might consider also saving a Profile with that and other settings and just engage that when you log into the radio under Profiles.

Ian

James Charlton

Thank you for your suggestion, but that doesn't solve the problem. I believe my problem is operator error, but I can't find the error.

For example, I have created transmit profiles for ant1 and ant2.

I select a global profile I made called so2r ant1 ant2 with the idea of locking the slices to their respective antennas.

Then I go through every band on slice A setting both the transmit and receive antennas to ant 1 and I save the global profile.

At this point, slice A shows antennas 1 on all bands.

Then I do the same thing on slice B setting every band to transmit and receive antennas 2.

Now, if I go back to slice A, I find that some, but not all, bands have changed either the receive or transmit or both antennas to ant2.

It seems as though the problem is related to the interaction of the transmit profiles and the global profiles, but I haven't figured out how. The Flex notes are not helpful in that they describe what the profiles do, but not how to make them do it.

I would appreciate any further suggestions.

Regards,

Jim Charlton AD0AB

Rich M5RIC

When you change band it will always use the antenna last used for that band, regardless of slice. So if you use 20M on Slice B with ANT2 then move to 40M, if you go to 20M on Slice A it will be set to ANT2 as this is what it was when last used.

This is a pitiful when trying to do SO2R, that you generally always want Slice A to keep to ANT1 and ANT2 to Slice B.

Various ways round it, I use a program called Flex Butons, so when I change band it sets the band, frequency, antenna, dax channel etc, all so it's always correct on the slice I want.

Think you can do it with profiles but this seems much easier.

James Charlton

Thank you,. Unfortunately, it seems to be working exactly as you describe.

I've had the radio for years and never bothered with profiles. Each time I operated I would just set the slice to an antenna and that was that. Now I'm more into so2r and am finding the need have a more structured operation. I thought the profiles would be the way to accomplish that but, I've found them to be confusing.

Thanks for the advice and I'll give Flex Butons a try.

Jim AD0AB

Rich M5RIC

Yes when I first got my 6600 it was very frustrating given it's sold as an SO2R radio.

If you have a stream deck you can do the same but assigning multiple functions to a button to activate when you press it.

I find flex buttons better and it can do a whole load more but I mainly use it for band changes. Have set up buttons for SSB, CW and RTTY for Slice A and B so it's used for SO2R.

I found profiles confusing too, this is easier as the little window just sits in my desktop, 1 click and it's done.

James Charlton

Thanks so much for the Flex Buttons! It works great and it does automatically what I used to do manually. Of course, I've stopped everything for this afternoon and am spending all my time programming it, LOL!

It's too bad that the genius who wrote the Profiles code didn't think of it.

Thanks again,

Jim AD0AB

Rich M5RIC

Yeah, you will be sat for a while, I have changed layouts a few times until I got to one that worked.

Here is mine, not saying it's right for all but works for me.

Here is an example of one slice so you can see.

VA7BNB_Brent

Hello,

This is the first i have heard of "Flex Buttons" and i would like to learn more.

Can somebody help me find out more? information?

Thanks all,

Brent

Rich M5RIC

http://www.kregli.com/

If you search the community, Keith has made several posts but his website above links to download and the manual. A great tool.

VA7BNB_Brent

Thanks!😀

I couldn't find anything, time to tweak my search skills.

K9YK

The problem I’ve experienced with multiple slices stored in a profile is that, after recalling a profile, the slices don’t always get created with the same letters as when they were saved. This becomes a problem (for example) when you save a profile with 4 slices - 2 for FT8 and two for voice. You set up DAX and CAT to attach to particular slice letters and then recall the profile, if the slices come up with different letters it breaks the DAX/CAT setup.

Eric-KE5DTO

https://community.flexradio.com/discussion/comment/20605865#Comment_20605865

That sounds like a bug. If you have a repeatable way to replicate this issue (even if it doesn't happen every time), let us know. That's the best way for us to be able to find and fix this issue.