FT8 power drop during transmit

Mike,

Ok, i think this is sniffed out. Been working with Marcus at SmartSDR for Mac. Man is a genius.

I was having power drop offs during FT8 transmission cycles. 

First step was to turn on "transmit on waterfall" and it showed horizontal lines across the transmit stream. Also by turning up the volume, I could hear the volume wavering like it was getting repeatedly interrupted. Not good.

Took my MacBook to a friends house who runs a 6600. His setup was working perfectly. My problem came with me, so it is in my MacBook.

To verify, I brought my friends Maestro with me and added it to my system in parallel. My waterfall showed numerous horizontal lines and the Maestro was clean, so not the Flex 6400 and not my network.

Next, added a usb to lan adapter to my MacBook and connected to Flex by ethernet cable. Worked fine once i remembered to turn off the wifi on the MacBook, and force connection to the lan adapter. So, not the software in the MacBook.

So we have narrowed it down tho the wifi circuitry in the MacBook. Not a result i was hoping for. I can find no other answer.

So my options are use the existing MacBook (2015 vintage) on lan cable (kinda defeats the purpose of a flex, don't it?), or i can get a new MacBook. I was gonna try the software on my wife's iMac, but its too old for the SmartSDR software. Too bad.

When this setup works, it's magic. But there is a fertile area for gremlins. Might just have too much computer in my radio.

AND OF COURSE, this happened right before ARRL Field Day. Just my luck.