What is Flexradio offering to replace the FLEX-6700 radio

Rich C

What is Flexradio offering to replace the FLEX 6700?


FLEX 6700 comments.
HIGHLY ADVANCED. HIGHLY ACCESSIBLE.
With DUAL SPECTRAL CAPTURE UNITS (SCUs), the FLEX-6700 allows multiple active antennas to provide reception and unprecedented spectrum visibility across UP TO EIGHT PANADAPTERS AND WATERFALLS, YES WE SAID EIGHT. The DUAL-STAGE RF PREAMPLIFIERS enhance weak signal reception up through 6m, 4m and 2m bands. And total flexibility and the highest performance set the FLEX-6700 apart from other radios. Its’s a radio that is off-the-charts on performance scale, yet as intuitive and accessible as every SDR we make.

FLEX 8600 comments
• 4 Independent Band/Mode Receivers (Max)
• Frequency COVERAGE: 30KHz-54 MHz
• Amateur Band Preselectors: 7th Order Contest bands, 3rd Order Other

I’m sure there are many under the hood improvements with the new FLEX 8600 radios offered by Flexradio. As a contester with the special interest in RTTY events the ability of “SPECTRUM VISIBILITY ACROSS UP TO EIGHT PANADAPTERS AND WATERFALLS” is YES unprecedented. So what has happened to Flexradio now offering the FLEX 8600 as the new line with only “4 Independent Band/Mode Receivers (Max)”. Am I not interpiting the radio specs correctly. I am in the process of rebuilding my station with the hope that Flexradio will be the path I will follow.

Rich C AA2MF

Russ Ravella

No, you're reading it correctly. No 8-slice version yet. Many of us have asked about it. Steve Hicks (Flex CTO) responded with a very information series of posts about it. He's aware of the desire and said something along the lines of, "I can't imagine a future without an 8 slice version" (my actual words there) but isn't ready to talk in terms of a timeline yet. He essentially said Flex needs to get their 2 and 4 slice 8XXXs and some planned f/w out and gain experience with how the new additional processing capability shakes out. Then they'll consider an 8 slice version. He clearly understands there's a lot of interest in it. I'm a 6700 user and am holding out for that !

73 Russ KR6W

Rich C

Russ KR4W,
Thanks for your very informative response.

With Flexradio offering Black Friday sales on its Preloved Flex-6700 I decided to take advantage of the discount and buy one. My station will always have a second radio position and although the Flex-6700 has been discontinued it being a very good product I’m sure it will provide me with a reasonable length of service. As my home was damaged and station operating position destroyed during the resent Florida storms having access to a Flex-6700 will allow me the needed time to learn the radio and interfacing the various software programs. In reality having the Flex-6700 will simply give me something ham related to do. Right or Wrong good decision or bad as with most things in life only time will tell.

Joining the Flexradio family I look forward to many enjoyable years of contesting, radio enjoyment and the introduction of a new 8 Slice radio line.

Thanks again.
Rich C AA2MF

Russ Ravella

Rich, I gotta tell ya I can't see how you can go wrong with a 6700. I don't hear this talked about that much among customers but Flex is a fundamentally different animal than all other ham radios. And in a very significant way.

It's not really a traditional ham radio at all but a ham radio-sever. And that difference designed in from the ground up leads to a long list of unique attributes like: the existence of all manner of different clients in addition to the Win SSDR Flex provides, which run on a variety of platforms like iOS, iPADOS, Mac and apparently an Android version is in the final stages of development; multiple clients being able to log in to the radio-server at the same time; accessories like the PGXL, TGXL and AG all connected and cooperating via LAN; and everything easily operable remotely over the WAN from anywhere natively, not as a clumsy add-on, among others. By "natively" I mean there's no funny business. You operate exactly the same way you do when you're sitting in front of the radio.

But perhaps the best attribute follows from the fact that they're fundamentally s/w based. Even other SDRs are designed around their knobs and switches physical interface which limits how much they can evolve without requiring a whole new model. Your soon-to-be 6700 is totally different. That physical radio was first released over 12 years ago yet with a simple f/w update, you've got the latest 6XXX radio. Almost no matter what Flex charges for them, they've got to be the best value (on top of everything else) there is in a ham radio. And except for full version releases (which are only $200), these updates are literally free.

Eventually when an 8-slice version comes out, the 8XXX model will be able to support f/w that goes beyond even that but until then, you'll have the latest greatest 6XXX radio. Amazing …

GL Russ KR6W