Making the Flex 8600 + into a superCW transceiver

Roger G3LDI · April 16

SmartSDR_CW_Parameter_Specification.docx

I had a dream! I composed what I would like to see, as a CW operator, available for all CW ops to be able to adjust their CW to their desired setting. Some of these parameters are already available, but to have them all in one place appeals to me. What do YOU think? OR, is it just a dream?

73 de Roger, G3LDI

John G3WGV · April 23

I would like to support this initiative, especially the ability to adjust RF envelope rise/fall times. I do not use the internal keyer, mainly because I value the physical speed control knob that WinKey gives me, so the built-in keyer features are irrelevant to me. Nonetheless they would be valuable for those that do use in internal keyer.

A very long-term outstanding request is for CW side-tone + RX audio to be available as a fixed level digital audio stream. I wrote a proposal for this way back in 2020 but despite, apparently, being on the to do list, nothing has happened in the intervening ten years. It seems like a pretty obvious requirement, it would be great to have and, I would think, a rather simple job to implement. Ten years is a long time to wait and still have nothing to show for it. A higher implementation priority for CW TX/RX enhancements would be welcome.

73, John, G3WGV

Mimram · April 27

I would like to support this initiative, especially the ability to adjust RF envelope rise/fall times. I do not use the internal keyer, mainly because I value the physical speed control knob that WinKey gives me, so the built-in keyer features are irrelevant to me. Nonetheless they would be valuable for those that do use in internal keyer.

73 gdx de Alan G8OO

Jim G3YLA · 2:41PM

This is a great dream Roger, many rigs allow the keying parameters to be controlled by the user and I agree this would be a good option to build into future SSDR releases. For those not familiar with what's required a simple option to restore factory settings would be a suitable 'get out of jail' card if it goes wrong.

Hope it happens

73 de Jim, G3YLA

g4ivv · 4:06PM

I also support Roger's request for more CW configurable parameters, in particular I would value more control over the APF filter (gain and Q).

The other big issue with CW for those of us that operate the radio via a high speed LAN is that the receiver audio in SmartSDR and Maestro is only available using Opus audio compression. This introduces a level of "mush" in CW pileups and impacts the fidelity and SNR of the CW tone. Obviously for those that operate remote over the internet the Opus compression is required to reduce the data rate, but what I'm talking about is LAN based radios, for example my radio is located in my garage.

Thankfully there are now 3rd party clients that allow the user to stream the high bandwidth, high quality uncompressed floating point receiver audio (SDC RigAudio and AetherSDR). Its a revelation for those of us that can't plug headphones into the back of the radio to switch to uncompressed CW - if you are in this positon and haven't tried it, I highly recommend doing so.

It would just be really nice if the offical Flex clients Maestro and SmartSDR supported the uncompressed receiver audio for LAN based connections. It requires no change to the radio firmware.

73, Jonathan G4IVV

Making the Flex 8600 + into a superCW transceiver

Active · Last Updated April 16

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