Welcome to the new FlexRadio Community! Please review the new Community Rules and other important new Community information on the Message Board.
If you are having a problem, please refer to the product documentation or check the Help Center for known solutions.
Need technical support from FlexRadio? It's as simple as Creating a HelpDesk ticket.

Connect to two flex radios to a single PC

Steve Bunting
Steve Bunting Member ✭✭
I am looking to connect two flex radios (6300 and a 6500) to a single PC to try SO2R. I understood the post by Tim @flex at  https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/how-to-have-one-radio-track-another to say that V3 can do this. I have upgraded to V3 this weekend, but still cant work out how it is done.

Any ideas?
Thanks
Steve, M0BPQ

Answers

  • Jim Gilliam
    Jim Gilliam Member ✭✭
    edited April 2020

    I am using 2.6.1 and use two radios on the PC all the time. You just double click on the SDR icon to bring up the first radio. Then, just double click again on the same icon to bring up the second instance of the same program and choose the second radio. Bringing up the two instances will give you two windows of the two separate radios which are controlled independently.


    I use one radio locally and the other remotely which is about one hundred miles away. When I am operating both radios on the same frequency the audio sounds "echoish" due to the delay of the second radio's data traveling over a longer path. .


    Jim, K6QE
  • Chris DL5NAM
    Chris DL5NAM Member ✭✭✭
    edited February 2020
    Jim, do you get also 2 instances of CAT Window?

    For SO2R are two different CAT ports needed to use it with one contest software

    Chris
  • Mike-VA3MW
    Mike-VA3MW Administrator, FlexRadio Employee, Community Manager, Super Elmer, Moderator admin
    edited April 2020
    So, while you can connect to 2 radios with 2 copies of SmartSDR, you can only run 1 copy of CAT or DAX, so this limits your ability to control the radio for SO2R and also use OTRSP which you need for SO2R.

    As a thought, consider trading in the 6300 and 6500 for a 6600 and you will have a solution that is designed for SO2R. 

    Mike

  • Chris DL5NAM
    Chris DL5NAM Member ✭✭✭
    edited February 2020
    Mike, what is the difference between a 65 and 66 (BPF i know) in case of SO2R ?

    I still using 2 PC's and N1MM 

    Chris
  • Jim Gilliam
    Jim Gilliam Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020

    Yes, I do. However, and I forgot to mention this, I am using my second remoted radio over a VPN. It is OpenVPN that is firmware-supplied with my Asus RT-88AU routers. I have never tried this using SmartLink in both instances as I get much faster throughput using the VPN on the remoted radio.
  • Mike-VA3MW
    Mike-VA3MW Administrator, FlexRadio Employee, Community Manager, Super Elmer, Moderator admin
    edited February 2020
    Hi Chris

    The big difference in operational modes and cost is due to the 2nd Spectral Capture Unit.  The 6600 and 6700 have 2 and all others only have 1 SCU meaning you have to share a common antenna.  

    This means the 6600 and the 6700 behave like 2 unique radios with a shared transmitter.  

    https://www.flexradio.com/comparison/

    Mike

  • Steve Bunting
    Steve Bunting Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    We run multi-2 a lot of the time and I was just looking to try something new as the station is set up with filters and antenna switching which makes it SO2R ready. As we cant have two incidences of smartCat/DAX running we need to use two PCs like Chris does (above).

    Spending a few thousand dollars on 6600 shaped experiment won't work for me as Flex doesn't have a good resale value here and the price of a new 6600 is 30% more than in the US.

    Ah well..... Thanks for replying!

Leave a Comment

Rich Text Editor. To edit a paragraph's style, hit tab to get to the paragraph menu. From there you will be able to pick one style. Nothing defaults to paragraph. An inline formatting menu will show up when you select text. Hit tab to get into that menu. Some elements, such as rich link embeds, images, loading indicators, and error messages may get inserted into the editor. You may navigate to these using the arrow keys inside of the editor and delete them with the delete or backspace key.