Contesting with the Flex 6600

Ray G3XLG

I enjoy CW & Data HF contesting with my 6600, but I now want to improve my station and my scores.

At the moment I have the Flex with a 1kW amplifier, dipoles for 80M & 40M and a 3 element tribander for 10, 15 & 20M, all fed to the radio via an Antenna Genius using one feedline on the 6600 Ant Port 1.

However I am confused about how to set things up for SO2R or Diversity Reception, and need some advice or help please.

I know the 6600 has two Spectral Capture Units SCU's so presumably if I put in an all band vertical as an additional antenna with its own feedline, I could then use the 6600 with either diversity reception or as the separate radio & antenna system for SO2R?

I believe for SO2R I would need to open an additional slice for the vertical antenna on Flex Ant Port 2 and for diversity reception (using the vertical just as a receive antenna), i would connect the vertical to the BNC RX In on the A port rather than the Flex Ant Port 2 ?

Is Full Duplex Mode FDX the same as SO2R? The SmartSDR Users Guide says "the radio must be placed into FDX mode", where do I select that mode?

Have I understood how to connect up the additional vertical antenna correctly?

Is it possible to operate SO2R on a single band with the 6600?

Any advice or clarification of my confused thoughts are welcome!

73 Ray G3XLG

Rich M5RIC

Hi Ray,

If you want to use the vertical for diversity then you can just hit the DIV button in SmartSDR, that way the VFO's are tracked. If you are only wanting to receive on the vertical you could use the RX port or connect it to your Antenna Genius and then connect Port B to antenna 2. Both options can be selected on the second slice.

With the 6600 you are right, there is 2 SCU's so this means you can only receive on 2 antennas at any one time. Regardless of how many slices you can have.

FDX allows you to receive on a band at the same time as transmitting on another. So for SO2R you could be running on 10M and receiving on 20M.

SO2R generally means running on one band and using another to find mults but nowadays people are running on 2 bands and interleaving QSO's - also called 2BSIQ - 2 band synchronised qso's.

SO2R on a single band is called SO2V - single op 2 VFO. So running on 1 frequency then tuning round the same band on another.

When configuring the 6600, always set it up for SO2R in terms of software etc, even when doing SO2V. This is how the flex needs to run.

Hope that helps.

73

Rich

David Decoons, wo2x

If the vertical is going to be used as an RX only antenna then I recommend connecting it to RXB on the 6600.

If you plan to use it for RX and TX, then connect it to an unused antenna port on the AG. Assign it to the bands where it can be used.

When selecting Diversity with slice A on Ant1, your choices for the second (diversity antenna) are Ant2, RXB, or transverter B. Remember, only Ant2 will allow it to be used as a transmit antenna with the radio's HF internal 100 watt amp engaged.

73 Dave wo2x

Mike-VA3MW

Hi Ray

FDX is in the bottom left of SmartSDR