First Flex station. Questions and call for questions.

Brad Councilman

Having no experience with Flex or remote operations, I am concerned the most important questions are those I don't know enough to ask......

I'm waiting for an 8600 which will ship with a Maestro and the Genius triplets.

What are the online resources I should be looking at?

I've prepared a 6' rack with multiple shelves. When the station becomes remote, it will be installed in the racks of my former tv broadcast van (parked at a noise and antenna friendly location with shore power and internet).

What concerns should I have about the physical placement of the rf components (also IC-9700), ethernet switch and station computer?

Direct responses and questions are welcome: bc@councilman.com

73,

--Brad W1BCC

KD0RC

Hi Brad, congratulations on your new station! This Community is the right place to get questions answered.

When I got my 6400 a few years ago, I read all of the Flex documentation while I waited for delivery. That helped enormously once it arrived. Go to the Flex site and click on the Support tab. There you will find a hardware manual for the 8000 series as well as the latest SmartSDR documentation. You will also find what you need for the Maestro and Genius products.

There are a number of YouTube videos by Mike, VA3MW about various aspects of FLex radios, but particularly about remote operation. He operates almost entirely remotely and has some really good insights.

Another set of good YouTube videos is by Ken, NM9P. I especially like his technique for setting mic profiles.

I saw your QRZ page - very cool! Check out the HamVan topic on Groups.io.

https://groups.io/g/HamVan/topics

My buddy Dave, W4WKU built a ham van similar to yours from a Denver channel 9 engineering van. I am sure he would love to hear about your van.

Russ Ravella

Hi Brad,

Congratulations on your new rig ! You're going to love it !

The advice that comes to mind is, be careful to follow the published guidelines to the letter regarding installation and upgrading. The 4O3A devices work great but can be finicky to get working together. Be sure you're using the f/w versions Flex recommends for each device. They can be found at the top of this forum page. Especially follow the reset and restart timing advice carefully. People report all manner of strange behavior that is very frequently resolved with one (or more !) factory reboots and/or f/w version updates. I've had this experience myself. Dave DeCoons WO2X is very knowledgeable about this (and everything else Flex), just search his posts on this forum and the Flex groups.io reflector for his authoritative advice.

Lastly, one thing that distinguishes Flex from many other ham radio companies is fast, superb support. If you get stuck with anything, submit a support ticket and these guys will stop at nothing to get you going. They're amazing.

73 Russ KR6W