8600M and smartlink setup ?

K3SF

Got new 8600m today and having issue setting up smartlink

have smartlin accoutnsetup fromy 6600M not problem

and

trying to add 8600m to same account but i get error message saying "Smartlink refuse command"

also when doing via

not sure what the issue maybe …

any suggestions appreciate before i submit help ticket

Paul K3SF

Mike-VA3MW

I created a support ticket for this.

BTW, if you haven't yet, run through all the steps in Section 9 of the SSDR User Guild just to make sure you haven't missed something.

73

Trucker

Don't you just love autocorrect!

K3SF

No resolution to date..i am able to register and de-register my 6600m using macssdr but not the 8600m using its front panel or macssdr. working thru help ticket with Ken at flex…lotsa email back and forth to work thru this all day today…

side note…having command issues using xcat on mac m1mini macos 15.4 with 8600m but not 6600m. The commands sent seem to get time out response. investigating this.

I can run macssdr with 8600m and use its cat control with no time out…my current guess is front panel client not quite responding same as 6600m does…

more later as I dig into this…

Paul K3SF

Tom OBoyle

Hi Paul -

I get the same error message here trying to setup smartlink. I submitted a ticket with Flex support. My 6600 worked perfectly before and the 8600 does not.

Did you get your issue resolved?

73 de Tom, N9GUN

K3SF

Hi Tom

I wish you better experience than i have had.

Never Resolve the issue.

After a week of constant interaction with Ken at flex, the 8600 never worked to setup the 8600m on smartlink and would never register either, could not even perform the 'network' test that is builtin cause the test button on front panel was non responsive

As requested by flex, I performed reset/cold boots multiple time to no avail. Alos, traceroute to assure no double gnat and only have one router doing dhcp addressing all other router in bridge mode.

i will admit, i do have complex home network with a few subnets but the subnet that radios are on always work with them.

i also made sure the 6600m was not on the network at the same time when performing any tests.

Hence, today , I sent the 8600M back requesting REFUND…meanwhile my 6600m is working flawlessly.

i will say this, i did not expect that kind of issue as the same version of ssdr is running on my 6600M too.

So maybe sending my 8600M may help flex find the flaw

It is my belief there is a code issue in the front panel that does not appear in the 6600m. Some of this conclusion is also based on timing errors that occur with other CAT s/w (wsjtx for example) in Mac environment that does not happen with the 6600m.

i still think Flex is decent product as proven by my 6600m which i have had since they first came out.

but….

it has now cost me $200 ( shipping plus insurance ) to ship it back which i know i wont recover. That was an expensive learning experience and result of me wanting to be on the leading edge.

Not to mention cost of 8600M ( $6k+) which i expect to receive as refund.

Paul K3SF

SIINC

Don't know if this the same issue, but I can't connect remotely using SmartLink. It comes up with my sign in info but reports to me that no radios are available. All works fine using SmartSDR on a desktop on my home network and have full control with operating the digital modes, but when using a laptop at my office can't sign in. Maybe I'm missing something. Not sure what to do next. All the other radio operations are just fine.

Al

W6AAX

Mike-VA3MW

Al

SmartLink and local LAN connections are totally different animals so to speak. Totally different than Paul's issue which looks like he is dealing with a MESH situation, but I am only guessing since I don't have enough details. If we knew the key IP addresses of the radio and the gateway, it would help to tell the story and possibly the root cause.

If you are having an issue using SmartLink that it is a network routing issue. Do you know what type of internet connection you have? Is it CGNAT or nonCGNAT?

You can always open a support ticket as well.

SIINC

Mike

Good question, I need to investigate type of internet connection. I didn't think it was the same problem as Paul's, just sounded similar.

Thanks for responding.

Al

Mike-VA3MW

Often the symptoms are similar with SmartLink not working correctly. There are many root causes that can cause that.

73

Eric-KE5DTO

Based on the information in this thread (and some other recent questions through our helpdesk), we were able to identify a server side issue with SmartLink where sometimes a 8000 series radio registration would be rejected inappropriately. We came up with a fix and tested it on our staging server yesterday without issue and pushed the fix to the production server this morning. Please give this another try and let us know if this addresses the issue you were having with registration. Thanks.

K3SF

hi ALL

Other issue i had trying to get smartlink to work was the TEST button on front panel is non-functional…

so could not test the network configuration …hence no pass / fail indication available for me.

That just complicated the whole trouble shooting process from my viewpoint…

Also my network is a Star configuration off the main FIOS router with the radio room on its own subnet.

This works perfectly with the 6600m in the same position, so i put the 8600m there and removed the 6600m

and that was the setup tested.

I am glad to hear Flex found and fixed an issue with Smartlink server unique to 8xxx series as a result of our effort working with Ken of flex to help trying to resolve my issues.

I also operate with all Macs with occasional virtual PC on intel based mac. I know being on Macs makes working with the help desk a bit more difficult but i was trying to do all testing from the front panel of 8600m and not use mac s/w.

On positive note i was able to use macssdr and and on virtual windows running on mac using ssdr with no issues other than smartlink .

There were other unanticipated issues using mac s/w that works with the 6600m but did not work with the 8600m. As Mike has indicated mac and/or third party s/w is not really easily or readily addressed by the helpdesk. I understand the position as their baseline is ssdr on windows.

On key capability i have with 6600m it to use two slices on the front panel, run xdax/xcat which are mac versions of dax/cat and interface with mac version wsjtx..i did not expect that to break with the 8600m.

but it did.

This capability is key in my day to day operations because i also use multiflex and smartlink for casual ops at the same time the front panel slices are doing band surveys hunting for band openings.

Both the loss of capability to test the network from front panel and to even access smartlink from the front panel and operating wsjtx with front panel based slices are unacceptable for me.

I still like flex products and their forward looking vision as i still consider my original 6600m as awesome radio but current 8600m implementation was less than expected to be able to operate at least as well as 6600m running same ssdr version.

i will attest to the fact that 6600M significantly helped my quest to achieve DXCC HR.

Paul K3SF

Mike-VA3MW

Let me ask some questions.

• What is the IP addresses of the 6600M?
• When you install the 8600M what is the IP address?
• What is the Gateway IP address of the main Gateway/Router?
• What is the Gateway IP address of the secondary Gateway/Router

My thoughts:

• I think you are double NAT'd. While the 6600M works, likely because you have manually added the firewall rules for the 6600M on the gateway, you now need to make sure that you have tunneled all the way from the outside world, called the WAN.
• Port forwarding rules need to be manually added to the Main Router while the 2nd Router likely got its new rules from the radio. When I say Router I also mean Gateway and it sounds like you have 1 Gateway feeding another Gateway.
• The 8600M will require a complete new set of rules and this is why it will fail the test.

Using the Radio as a remote server and using a Laptop on the same network to surf the web are totally different situations. The Laptop knows the route to get to the outside world even if you are double NAT'd.

However, when you attempt to connect to the radio remotely, which is what the test button does, the outside world does not know the route to the radio. Again, the radio is a Server device.

You can fix this a few ways.

Run the 2nd network in a Bidged mode so that it is an extension of the primary network. All devices are served by the same DHCP server and you only have to worry about 1 set of port forwarding rules. Running both radios in Automatic will automatically set up the Port Forwarding rules on the main router. Your users won't notice the difference and it is great for home networks even if running a MESH. Again, it is a Bridged or AP mode setting on the 2nd network. Make sure you do NOT have 2 DHCP servers running as that will confuse the **** out of everything.

If you are able to make this 1 network with 1 subnet, it will be much simpler to manage.

Or, you can make note of the IP address of the 6600M and remove it from service. When you put the 8600M online give it the same IP address and you'll either have to do this manually by IP reservation or manually.

Another idea is to buy some FlexRadio Customization time. This is where we change by the 1/2 hour for Tim to connect and work on this. While we do this for some situations, I am not sure we are doing it for networks such as yours due to possible liability issues. While Ken did his best to help, it should be escalated to Tim, but Tim has been under the weather for the last week unfortunately.

Again, I am sharing some thoughts

I would highly recommend you sketch out on paper the path from the radio to the outside world and all the hardware devices involved as that will tell the picture. As I mentioned earlier, all this is based on my assumption on your network based on what we have seen in the past.

In the end, there is no reason why both radios should not be able to coexist in this network once the network plumbing is correctly configured. The FLEX-8600 not working is not the fault of the radio as this is only the symptom, not the actual root cause of the problem.

73

K3SF

Being an engineer i documented my setup …i do this cause some day there will be a need to dismantle the station….i sent Ken all these details

This is the network configuration..all apple routers in bridge mode and wifi have same id and only fios router does dhcp…

This is whole house network cause of local wifi interference so we saturated the multi-level house…

Also, the radios run to gigabit switch to airport extreme to fios router all on Cat6e cabling

i did have the wifi switches working but that was for testing a possible remote setup later and that is why is show TBD

The spot where the 8600 is where i had the 6600m..simple swap of rigs in the station all cable and locationBecause of smartlink issue and few other issues, I have sent the 8600M back to flex and put the 6600m back in service.

AS for IP address, the 8600m got a different ip address than the 6600m. If i recall correctly from my memory the 8600 had server ip was 192.168.1.37 and front panel was 192.168.1.38

The 6600m was 192.168.1.181 and 192.168.1.182 respectively…

I will say the Ken work very diligently with me thru all of this but could not make it work.

i will say again the 'TEST" button on front panel never responded to perform a network test to show if it pass or fail the network test. It did nothing. Even after multiple factory reset and cold boots.

Paul K3SF

Mike-VA3MW

Thanks for this. Even if the 6600M worked, the 8600M needs all its own rules unless you use the exact same IP address for the 8600M that the 6600M used, but you can't have them both on your network at the same time.

To understand this, think of a brand new packet of information has to try to find the radio. It needs to know the WAN address (outside) and the TCP Port and UDP port to use. If you have 2 radios, then it is the same WAN TCP address but different port numbers.

On the FiOS router and the Airport Extreme, you will need custom port forwarding rules. 2 rules (1 UDP and 1 TPC) for each radio for a total of 4 rules if you are supporting 2 radios.

The rules on the FiOS router point to the IP address of the Airport Extreme and the rules on the Airport Extreme point to the FLEX8600M and FLEX6600M radio IP address but the port numbers that they are being sent to are 4992 and 4993 as those ports can't be changed in the radio.

In SmartSDR Manual configuration you supply the TCP and UDP numbers your defined in the FiOS router on the WAN side.

If it was me, I would log into the FiOS router and find the port forwarding rules. Next, do the same with the Airport Extreme. I think you do that with the Airport Utility and look for Port Mapping under a Network tap. I don't have one, so I am flying by what Google tells me.

Port Forwarding is reasonably straight forward. You are just 'wiring' our 'moving' data from one place to a new place.

73

Trucker

Mike, I may be wrong, but I think he either gave up on the 8600M and returned it or he sent it back for possible repair.

James

WD5GWY

K3SF

hi James

i did indeed send it back for a refund…

i did additional testing which kept indicating the front panel has s/w issues.

remember i run macs so i use xdax and xcat

so i ran macssdr using xdax/xcat to interface with wsjtx and not use native FT8 inside macssdr

there the macssdr act as the client

worked just fine

i can run the the 6600m with just the front panel client with xdac/xcat/wsjtx

and

it works fine

but

i could not do the same with the front panel client of 8600m

which was my data point to indicate possible front panel issues

so not having smartlink capability and not being able to use front panel client

for digital modes indicated that i would lose significant operating capabilities

by keeping the 8600m.

even though the 6600m and the 8600m run the same version of ssdr they do not operate the same.

i still believe flex is great company but current 8600m version does not operate in a mac environment the same as previous flex radios. Something changed enough on the client side (aka front panel) when they went from MS tablet to their own home grown implementation.

I was working with Ken at the help desk but we were not making any progress to solve the smartlink issue and they most likely were not going to address front panel interaction because it is a mac environment and not their advertised windows support.

The 8600m is on it way back to flex.. i would have loved to kept it but ( see all the above )

Paul K3SF

Trucker

Paul, thanks for the detailed explanation. I am sorry that the 8600M had front panel issues. Given your description of the problem you were experiencing I have a difficult time understanding why the front panel and the computer module that controls the display and knobs and buttons, would have the problem you encountered. The front panel and computer module are just another device connected to the radio/server via ethernet connection. No different than having a pc running Windows or a Mac connected to your network and talking to the radio. The front panel computer module doesn't provide CAT or DAX data over the network. It does consume data for things like Spots. But, it's use of CAT and DAX is pretty limited. Maybe for controlling the PGXL and other devices from the front panel. But, if it has that feature I have not used it. ( no PGXL) I think Flex Radio is intending to add control of things like the amplifier to SmartSDR. But, I don't know if it has actually been implemented yet. I haven't read of anyone else having a similar problem between a 8600M ( or 8400M) causing a problem like yours with a Mac. I wonder what the difference is that the 6600M works without issues and the 8600M has problems?

I hope that Flex Radio figures it out.

James

WD5GWY

Mike-VA3MW

Unfortunately, we do not have enough details on the issues with the Paul's routers and what port forwarding rules are in place to come to a fine conclusion to the root cause. We actually see this sort of failure fairly often on similar networks.

The reason I wanted to go into detail even if Paul had sent back his radio was to make it clear to others following the technical side of the story and that, as I mentioned, it is unclear what the root cause of the problem is.

I can say factually, that I run 3 and sometimes 4 radios on the same network (not double NAT'd like Paul has). 1 of them is an 8000 series and the others are 6000 series and they work as expected both on the local LAN and SmartLink.

I would also believe that even if Paul was to add a 2nd FLEX-6600M radio that it would exhibit the same symptoms as the FLEX-8600M and the likely root cause of the problem that the network was not configured correctly for the double NAT situation.

Paul, if you chose to give it another try. Let me know and I'll talk to Tim about it to make sure we get it functional.

73

John KB4DU

As Mike has frequently said, getting a network to function is pretty easy, but getting it to work well can be much harder.

K3SF

HI Mike

After you guys get the radio (expected delivery is Monday 21 April 2025), i would indeed like to work with you all and do other tests here to help getting best possible explanation , not just for myself but for the community at large.

What befuddles me the most was why the 6600m works fine and the 8600m did not on the exact same network configuration.

As for Jame's question

as to why i think the front panel may also have an issue, is i did one test that removed the front panel interaction with the server. The technique i used was to run macssdr and have it disconnect the front panel client and take control of all resources ( 4 slices) of the server. This did not fix the smartlink problem but did allow me to run xdax/xcat and wsjtx interfacing with macssdr client…to run FT8 from wsjtx and not using the builtin FT8 tool of macsssdr and on all four slices…

i could not use even a single slice set up by the front panel of 8600m using the same xdax/xcat/wsjtx.

i would get command time out errors…

On the 6600m the combo of xdax/xcat/wsjtx works fine just like i get with macssdr as client.

i do recognize that flex is windows-centric and that for macssdr they refer users to contact Marcus.

It was the combination of smartlink and losing front panel slices for wsjtx operation that convinced me to send 8600m back…

i did not make this decision lightly…cause i really did want to get the 8600m operational here.

Paul K3SF