4O3A maintenance release – Power Genius XL 3.9.7, Tuner Genius XL 1.2.41, Antenna Genius 4.1.18

Mike-VA3MW

Today we are releasing new software for three Genius products: Power Genius XL, Tuner Genius XL and Antenna Genius.
This release is about stability and reliability.
It fixes bugs and hardens the software, and it adds no new features. 

Updated user manuals for all three products are available with the software.

Power Genius XL 3.9.7

• One firmware and one utility now cover both the SO2R and the 3-way amplifier.
  The two models also share one user manual.
• Keying with no output on non-Flex ports is fixed.
• False RF EARLY alarms are fixed.
• Operate/Standby and status updates are 5–10× faster.
• Up to 16 clients are supported.
• The Flex display name is kept after a configuration change.
• RF-Protect boards with hardware 1.1 and newer are supported.

Tuner Genius XL 1.2.41

• Port 9010 no longer stops responding during tunes.
• Tuning now surveys and retries, and uses a 15 W tune on every recognised FlexRadio.
• A false HIGH POWER fault is fixed, and TCI no longer overrides tune power.
• Band data fixes for Power Genius XL Genius Integration.
• Meters keep working after a UDP drop, so SmartSDR shows live meters.
• Network buffers are resized and RAM is reclaimed.
• The Flex tune carrier is bounded, and 3-way antenna names are fixed.
• The touchscreen is overhauled, and the screen dims when idle.
• Fixes to metering, tune dispatch and Operate. The Aurora carrier is set to 3%.
• The software is hardened against overflows and for interlock, discovery and EEPROM handling.

Antenna Genius 4.1.18

• TCP socket stability is improved, especially with SmartSDR integration.
• The maximum number of client sockets goes from 5 to 24.
• PTT and antenna selection are more robust.
• Remote memory corruption bugs are fixed.
• Configuration fail-safes are added.
• An unreadable EEPROM no longer wipes the whole configuration.

What this means for you

• The release adds no new features, and product models are unchanged.
• There is now one Power Genius XL firmware and utility for both SO2R and 3-way units, which makes customer support simpler.
• Customers with a FlexRadio or SmartSDR setup will see the biggest stability gains.

Downloads

Software and user manuals: https://4o3a.com/support/downloads

Support

Send questions to 4O3A Support at support@4o3a.com.

Best regards,
The 4O3A Team

Henkka

Thank you. This is exactly what I have been hoping for, added stability and reliability.

73

Henkka OH5KNL

Erik Carling EI4KF

Yes, also good that now both my PGXL and PGXL3 need only one Utility. I am not too sure about the touch screen though. Once in to the menus, not so easy to back out. Maybe me.

KB4OIF

must be doing something wrong. mine still says 3.8.9 after installing

Erik Carling EI4KF

John, even after the firmware upgrade completed and the amp rebooted?

KB4OIF

found the problem. 80 yr OLD guy missed a step. DUH. Operator error. sorry

WX7Y

John, Your probably clicking on the wrong Icon, My PowerGenius ICON was not overwritten like the Tuner and Switch where so make sure you don't have another ICON somewhere on your desktop

Henkka

Updated PGXL manual recommends 20ms TX delay for Flex radios. Earlier "Dream station" recommendation was 40ms if I remember correctly. Any ideas why this change?

Erik Carling EI4KF

PGXL manuals have always cited 20ms. They also qualify that figure with 'minimum'. So, 20ms or 40ms I think it does not matter. I use 40ms and never had an issue.

David Decoons, wo2x

40 ms is recommended when you have the PG XL, TG XL and AG.

73 Dave WO2X

Henkka

Roger that, thanks Erik and David. Will continue using 40ms then.

Henkka OH5KNL

Lars Pettersson

They have already updated again toFW and 3.9.8 on pgxl and fw 1.2.42 on TGXL

happend today

KD0RC

The Antenna Genius upgrade went perfectly and is working great. I wasn't having any problems with the last release, so I don't really see any difference.

Erik Carling EI4KF

With the Tuner Genius, it was working perfectly except the touch screen menu was hard to close. With 1.2.42 when the unit is powered on I get 'Touchscreen not Calibrated' and it does not function at all. Also on the 'Other' tab in Device Settings I get

This is the entirety of it and it is not possible to adjust the size to read the full instruction.

Erik Carling EI4KF

As for the latest PGXL FW, well they have incremented above my level of understanding.

My PGXL 3-Way works perfectly with the configuration carried forward from the the previous versions. In the Device Settings for 3.9.8 on the 'Other' tab, it looks like it is possible to name the 3 antenna ports. Except that when I try I get this:

But if I leave the naming boxes blank there is no such error. The configuration without trying to add a name works fine - 160/80/30 are all on the PGXL's port 2 because they are all served from the TGXL. So why is there an issue when adding a name?

Gord-VA7GP

Hey there, @Erik Carling EI4KF

"I get 'Touchscreen not Calibrated' "

I also briefly got this, so I calibrated my touchscreen:

• Use rear-panel switch to turn the TGXL off
• Press-and-hold the right-most "TUNE" button
• Use rear-panel switch to turn on the TGXL, while continuing to press the "TUNE" button
• Rather quickly, a blue dot will appear on the screen - this uppper-left blue dot is the first calibration point. You can now release the "TUNE" button
• Touch this first blue dot, and the succeeding two more (far right edge, bottom center).

You're done calibrating!

Erik Carling EI4KF

Ok, thank you Gord. That bit sorted. 4O3A now released 1.2.42-1 Utility. FW is the same.

https://4o3a.com/functions/downloadUtility?file=https%3A%2F%2Fbase44.app%2Fapi%2Fapps%2F6a6b4d10392da1e9ebbf89f6%2Ffiles%2Fmp%2Fpublic%2F6a6b4d10392da1e9ebbf89f6%2F51f2faf3f_TunerGeniusUtility_v1242_1.bin&name=TunerGeniusUtility_v1242_1.exe

Henkka

Newest TGXL utility is now 1.2.42.2. and counting..

Russ Ravella

Love that 4O3A is paying so much attention to this stuff !

Lars Pettersson

TGXL SO2R has no touch screen acording Ranko on 4O3A

Gord-VA7GP

yes, @Lars Pettersson - that is also my understanding:

TGXL SO2R doesn't have (or use????) TouchScreen

TGXL 1x3 DOES have TouchScreen

Erik Carling EI4KF

I suppose it does not really need it. With the 1x3 version it is very handy if the unit is within reach. There is also an additional menu available via the touch screen

There is another sub-menu, accessed from INFO, split into 4 parts: Links, Channel, Diagnostics, Settings.

W2PP

THXL and PGXL updated without any issues

Peter

Hammer73

Two initial observations:

The PGXL triggered malware detection (Malwarebytes). False positive as far as i can tell but there was another vendor that triggered too. (Other major vendors did not). See https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/c6154741b5335ebba83f592093163397b9ae8925695f742d1392ac0a16c3a4d0/detection.

and

I did reset (Power ON/Tune button) the touch screen on my TGXL as i noticed the touch screen was not aligned with where i was touching the screen. NO blue dot to calibrated appeared and touch does no longer work on my screen after this reset. (FW 1.2.43)

Also, sadly still no native 'auto standby' feature without the help of other utilities. I keep hoping!

Erik Carling EI4KF

If the touch screen no longer works, you must have the 1x3 version. It should work and mine does with FW 1.2.43

When making the reset, do not let go of the Tune button too soon. Keep it depressed and the calibration will start.

dschaller

Downloaded AG version 4.1.18.1 and the Windows utility disappeared. The next day version 4.1.19 came out. Downloaded it and the Windows utility is back but it is not seeing the AG on my LAN. I have rebooted the AG to no avail. Suggestions?

dschaller

All good now, thanks to AI

Mike VE3CKO

See there are new versions out Oct. 2

• PGXL - v3.9.9
• TGXL - v1.2.43
• AG - v4.1.19

All 3 this time installed without issue. Well done! I had forgotten how unforgiving entering the start/stop bypass frequencies are, not only they must be entered in KHz (eg. "14000") then hit enter, if there is one bad entry, all bypasses will not work. I figured it out after some head scratching.

WX7Y

dschaller, are you running AetherSDR at the time when you are trying to update the App?

I had that trouble when I still had AetherSDR up and running and as soon as I shut down AetherSDR the AG APP found the AG

Hammer73

Thanks Erik EI4KF. I, for 100% do not have the 1x3 version. ☺️ I'm fully aware of the differences. I do get the message about touch not being calibrated when holding the tune button on startup but no option to calibrate. When doing a config reset the touch screen works but with completely not aligned touches. Using the tune during bootup again, resets the touch and i'm back at square one. (no touch response at all)

Erik Carling EI4KF

The SO2R version does not have a touch screen. That it worked before was a quirk. 4O3A confirmed no touch in this version to Lars Pettersson. See earlier post from him in this thread.