New owner, still learning question

PhilM

Hello,

I just received my new 8600 yesterday evening and now learning how to use it effectively.
I have a few of questions.

1. The internal fan sounds noisy, is there a break-in period for the fan? It seems slightly quieter this morning.

2. Is there something like STANDBY mode ? So I can keep the GNSS active when I'm not using it?

3. Is there a way to make the text larger and therefore easier to read? I tried increasing text size in windows display options ( win 11 pro ), but some of the characters were truncated at the bottom.

BTW I'm using the latest version of SmartSDR.

Thanks,

Phil NC3S

Trucker

If the fan sounds quieter today, I would think you don't have a problem. As far as I know, there isn't a Standby mode with the GNSS receiver like there is for the GPSDO. I found with the 8600M I had, that it really didn't take very long for the GNSS receiver to sync up and lock. The text in SmartSDR on your pc is dependent on the resolution setting you are using in Windows. You can make it too large and you will have problems displaying the text correctly.

James

WD5GWY

PhilM

The Fan sounds much better this afternoon. I am concerned that the gnss has not locked today. Yesterday when I first turned it on, it only tok a few minutes to acquire a lock, today none. I wonder if it may have something to do with it being overcast and cloudy all day today?

Phil

NC3S

Trucker

It depends on a lot of different things with the GNSS receiver. Mainly how much of the sky is visible to the antenna. I had the antenna for my 8600M hanging from the top of a north facing window on a string about 12" long. It seemed to get a lock fairly quickly. I don't think that cloud cover would cause a big problem for it to get a lock. I would suggest moving the antenna a bit to see if that makes a difference.

James

WD5GWY

PhilM

Gnss working well now, I re-positioned it on a different window indoors and it gets locked quickly. I tried it outside for part of a day and it worked well out there but heard it isn't weather resistant so moved it back indoors.

The fan still making a noise, I wonder if it is due to it being a variable speed fan, maybe they are pulsing it to control speed, I'm just guessing. So far so good.

Phil
NC3S

Trucker

Glad you got the GNSS working. As for the fan noise, it does vary in speed when you transmit for extended time. Before I had the 8600M I had a 6600M. I had noticed after several years of ownership that the fan was getting louder. I bought a replacement fan from Flex Radio and installed it. That fixed my noise problem. I did notice that the 8600M's fan seemed louder than the 6600M. But, not by much. If you feel that the fan in your radio is excessively loud, you may want to open a Help Desk ticket. If you hear anything like a tapping or rattling noise when the fan is running, you definitely need to open a Help Desk ticket. There's always the possibility that the fan is slightly loose on the rubber standoffs it is mounted on. Again, opening a Help Desk ticket might help you determine if you have a problem or not.

James

WD5GWY