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Posted 3 years ago
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73
John
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Product/software life cycles are a reality, have you seen the fine work Darrin has been doing to continually improve PSDR?
http://ke9ns.com/flexpage.html
Neal - K3NC, Elmer
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It's a double edged sword. Unfortunately, a company almost has to do it to stay relevant and profitable. One side effect that I've observed over time, is that products tend to get cheaper in quality and become almost throw away. It's a royal PIA and even wasteful when that happens (Ex: HP printers or Walt's example of dish washers). I would never volunteeringly support a company that gets to that point.
I DO however second the work of, and am extremely thankful for Darren's effort in breathing life into PSDR. I was also feeling abandoned and that nobody really cared before he came on the project. I hadn't had my 3K for too long and was thinking that it was really kind of a waste. It's SDR! Not the other side where it is predominantly hardware.
If FR hasn't already, I would hope that they have (also) compensated Darren appropriately.
Just my thought.
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As you allude, a point will come when FRS no longer supports the 6000, just as Kenwood no longer supports the 430 and 830 and 930 radios and Maytag no longer supports the washing machine we bought 3 years ago.
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KE9NS is updating, adding features etc... to PowerSDR for your 5000. He has the support of FlexRadio. Keep in mind PowerSDR is open source so anyone can modify if (you/they) wish.
your statement "I feel aborted by Flex. No updates, no enhancements; forgotten and discarded. I'm speaking of the software support to the 5000." not true.
Gerald - K5SDR (Official Rep) commented on a reply to this praise:
PowerSDR 2.7.2 ke9ns Revision R1
We are not shamed at all. We have been supporting and encouraging Darrin from the beginning of his efforts and have provided radios to him so that he can develop and test. I think that those who benefit from Darrin's work should compensate him accordingly.
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I haven't even updated to Darin's updated versions yet.
It's just that my 6300 works better.
My Maestro has shipped.
Time marches on.
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I've been complaining for +2yrs (when I got the F3K) that PwrSDR SSB DSP/AF is lame and near worthless ---- my IC-7000/746P/9100 canned DSP is far FAR better than PwrSDR multi-adjustments that never hit the mark.
Flex appears to be a CW company with no regards for SSB (my prime mode) and will NOT expend any more resources "TO MAKE WORK" the DSP SSB functional. If this is how Flex is going to support LEGACY products I'm not willing to invest in the 6K line to soon fall behind curve when they announce the 7K line (dumping 6K support like they did to 1.5/3/5K).
Sorry I'm not rich to follow the trend - but these are expensive radios and if I got the gist right Flex now charges for SmartSDR updates (doing the HRD crap).
p.s. I just acquired the IC-9100 due to PwrSDR DSP failure and I wanted a full SAT radio too. I did pick up a cheap used 5K - DSP is no better than the 3K (I'm now dumping the 3K and likely the 5K, going back to TT-Pegasus SDR with far better SSB DSP).
Kuby, N6JSX/8, MS-EET
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I know very little about software development, but I suspect it reaches a point where the amount of effort required increases exponentially to bring about even small improvements.
I have followed FRS's growth / business practices since the 5k. To me, they have consistently presented themselves as honest and reliable. I have never gotten the impression that they are in business to milk the customer. Paying for software improvements seems fair especially when one considers all the work that takes place to make it happen.
Finally, if your current radio does not perform as well as others then get the other. It really is that simple.
Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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Hey Joe
Where have you been for the last year? Sorry you missed on all the great work by Darrin KE9NS's work over the last year.
BTW what version are your running on your Flex-5000?
Being saddened three years after a product was discontinued is pretty severe.
Did you understand the issues that led to the 5000 being discontinued well before any 6000 series radios were available to ship? Sad but now three year old history.
You've implied that someday the SmartSDR radio servers and software might be superseded - so what? Most likely a good many years before the next "game changer" moves technology available affordably to the ham hobbyist that far forward!
Then JUST LIKE YOU, they won't be forced to change.
Has your out of production Flex-5000 stopped working? Has the stock PowerSDR program been disabled on you?
Of course not, because FlexRadio Systems lived up to their promises.
They never promised a lifetime of software updates or to somehow make production economical obsolete hardware.
Actually it is fabulous that an out of production radio still so meets your needs and captures your interest that you are reaching out to find out what is new after apparently being well satisfied for the year since your last inquiry. That is pretty cool!
Hope your efforts to update to the latest PowerSDR go well!
73
Steve K9ZW
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When I bought the 5000 I expected advances in software to go well beyond what they did. I was fooled, but I bought the 6300 figuring it's time would be about the same as the 5000 so I would not be surprised again. Then came Maestro a great product, but I thought there would not be a one year pause in development of 2.0 while Maestro was being developed. I won't use the word fooled but I was disappointed that there is no 2.0 I am looking at other products now but no one is working on a WAN network other than Flex. I have my doubts if there will ever be a 2.0, not so much that Flex won't try but the problems for WAN far exceed LAN. I have a KX3 and PX3 and rarely use my 6300 anymore, just too much of a PIA to keep it working (random re-boots, having to reconfigure DAX, CAT, no CW copy and the KX3/PX3 just works (both Flex and Elecraft are great to work with)
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^This is a complete assumption by you.
Its unfortunate you also are of the opinion that there will ever be a 2.0 release.
Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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In the last 12 months I count something like 5 (FIVE) SmartsSDR update releases:
version 1.4.16 - June 2015
version 1.5.1 - October 2015
version 1.6.17 January 2016
version 1.6.21 February 2016
version 1.7.30 May 2016
As version 1.4.xx had only been release before Dayton 2015 by a month, I would include the version 1.4.xx upgrade to the versions 1.5.xx, 1.6.xx, and 1.7.xx major upgrades.
And all while building out the SmartSDR Ecosystem with the birthing of the Maestro!
Not too shabby of a series of upgrades!
73
Steve K9ZW
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Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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It is an opinion whether something might or might not happen in the future.
It is a falsehood when the facts of history are denied.
They extreme examples to help one understand this area:
An acceptable opinion could be a statement that in your opinion one's kids are unlikely to marry before they are thirty.
An falsehood would be to say it was your opinion that you were never born and didn't exist.
Assertive statements lacking the "in my opinion " warning to readers invite factual challenges. Seems to be a hobby in our hobby to do this (in my opinion!).
73
Steve K9ZW
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n9skm and Bill instead of saying my "comments are completely unfounded, This is a complete assumption by you", tell me the facts instead of general roundhouse insults. In other words do what you say I am not doing, source your comments.
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First off they still continue to support all their older radios. If you call or write them with a problem, they will still offer tech support. And many new updates have been coming out lately, with the help of Flex by a third party.
Second, The PSDR came to the end of the road. The things that are and can be done in SSDR could not be done in PSDR code. Wide band stuff for instance.
Third, the new 6000's because of the way it is created needed a new software.
And, anything Flex did to improve PSDR was used buy other radio's free. that is why Anan is were it is now, they had a free software to use and they have built on it.
for you it was bad timing I understand that, but that is how any of this tech stuff works.
So to never buy Flex because you feel they have done you wrong,,I just can't see it sorry.
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What features is the radio lacking that you would like to have added that the updates are needed?
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"If Flex was looking at dropping developement on the f3k they should have said it. "
Companies have gone bankrupt doing this. They say that an enhanced product will be released next year and so, everybody stops buying from them. Their cashflow dries up and you do not see the next version.
I do feel your pain though. I do not have a solution for it either unfortunately. It is a risk we all take in one form or another when buying something.
If Flex folded tomorrow, I would have an expensive box that I could not sell, BUT it would still be a fine radio that would work.
I bought my Flex 6300 about a year and a half ago. Flex gave the SDR world a fine piece of software by making PSDR open source. Somebody has taken up the challenge of continuing development with, and this is the important bit, Flex's full co-operation.
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Because the sales were not there, made little sense to keep updating the PSDR and not for other companies to use.. A very expensive project. But good news is KE9NS has picked it up and is doing really nice stuff with PSDR, and this is fully supported by flex.
I hope you are taking advantage of this.
I think if you talk to KE9NS about what you would like to see done, he will let you know if he can, noise mitigation as you said could improve.
There are others talking to him now ,helping him.
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And if you had looked into things better you would have noticed all the info on the plans Flex released on the slowdown and stopping releases to PSDR, I knew it was coming,,why didn't you?
You have nothing to complain about here, do you really think they should keep paying a tone of money upgrading something that other companies will enjoy?
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So...belly up to the bar and pay for it then. Flex has new and refurbed 6k radios ready to ship, as we speak. And... you will be very impressed with the predicted update life cycle. that's pretty much the crux of it all....
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It has to stop somewhere. It has now stopped. The End.
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Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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I'll let you in on another secret, Ford discontinued support on the Model T! Not on their website! And they did the same on the Model A! Gasp, do you think people buying new Explorers should be told??!!
FRS does list the EOL dates of the 5000 and 3000 on its website, though they sneakily skip mentioning the EOL of the earlier 1000.
Again kudos to KE9NS for his work, but be clear that FRS continues to support a stable mature version of PowerSDR beyond which there has for years been no promise of additional FRS direct further development of PowerSDR.
73
Steve
K9ZW
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73
John
Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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@John
Did you get anywhere on your own efforts to update PowerSDR?
https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/flex1500-software-upgrade
Was pretty clear that you bought a second hand 3000 to add to your 1500 at some time after you'd discussed rolling your own PowerSDR upgrade about a year ago.
AFAIK there have been no new 3000 since 2014 and no new 5000 since 2013.
The FRS dealer network is selling used 3000/5000s taken as trade, and not running promotions of New Old Stock 3000/5000. Doesn't seem to be any quantity of NOS 3000/5000s out there when folks were trying to find radios.
73
Steve K9ZW
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I have a 6700 and a 5000A.
Taking all the foregoing comments into account, In my opinion FlexRadio has gone well beyond 'the normal call of duty' as a designer and manufacturer in supporting PowerSDR
Thank you
G4BIM
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Any non-SDR rig will work until components are no longer available for repair. It is a bit like cars. Must of the modern electronics in cars have been placed not for safety or pollution control, but for obsolescence. Will there be any examples of today's cars being on the road in 50 years' time? I would say that it is MUCH less likely than those 50 year old cars currently on our roads. A minor 'fender-bender' makes an air bag or two fire, and the car is scrapped due to the cost of the airbags and no other reason.
Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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End of the Road?
Your radio would keep running as long as there were net-aware HUI devices that could run a flavor of SmartSDR Software.
No different than if you decided to no upgrade to a new (paid for) major point revision, the old software keeps rolling.
Or perhaps you meant something along the lines of "If company XYZ stops developing product ABC, that then there will be no new product ABC versions after they stop"?
PowerSDR had economic and architecture limitations that ended paid development perhaps earlier than liked, but it was still a ten year product cycle.
Why would we expect anything less from SmartSDR, and perhaps much longer since the commercialization issues that foreshortened the earlier product have been resolved by keeping the design proprietary?
We cannot expect to have our cake and eat it too! Either the security of having a Software Firm (FRS) develop commercially future SmartSDR or having an Open Source SmartSDR that would end incentive to commercially develop it.
73
Steve K9ZW
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You can't expect SSDR to be open to all, that is just silly.
Not only that, there are very few out there that would be able to work on the code of SSDR even if it was open source. Some claim they could, but that's dreaming.
It will be several years before SSDR runs out of steam, the code allows them to do many more things yet, I bet there are lots of things still to come and we will all go WOW.
Gerald - K5SDR, Employee
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SmartSDR has an open API with more developers actively working with it than all combined in the history of PowerSDR. Two 6700R model radios will launch on a SpaceX rocket in July to be loaded onto the International Space Station using software developed by a system integration using only our API interfaces including the Waveform API. Another SI built an ionospheric sounder that operates on just millawatts using a FLEX-6500. They did everything with little support from us.
There are already multiple ham GUI clients and utility apps on the market and more coming. There are also multiple loggers that support the API and more coming.
None of this was even possible on the open source PowerSDR platform. PowerSDR is a "fat client" that evolved like spaghetti code over many years without an overarching design. SmartSDR was designed from the start with a long term architectural vision. With SmartSDR the radio IS a server with a 100% open control and waveform API in human readable format. This is unique in all of ham radio. You see only the tip of the iceberg. In practical terms SmartSDR is more open than PowerSDR ever was because the programming interface is well defined within the hierarchy of the architecture.
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Thanks,
Joe
WD5Y
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Thanks for that post which puts in one place for what the future holds for the SSDR system. Maybe Flex should consider hosting these client and utility apps? Having them in one place would let people see what was available as users and stimulates sales. Development would also be stimulated.
In the flight sim world, it was not possible for MSoft to host the third party aircraft and scenery as there was so much of it. One person would produce many aircraft and similarly scenery developers were also proliferative.
Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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In addition to Gerald's statement above, FRS put out an informative about a year ago:
https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/updated-powersdr
BTW in the statement is one of the earlier mentions of the "SmartSDR Ecosystem" as a descriptive for the new platform and it's hardware.
73
Steve K9ZW
Gerald - K5SDR, Employee
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Facts:
1. I personally started development of PowerSDR (then called SDRConsole) in 1999 and FlexRadio launched in 2003).
2. FlexRadio as a company performed 11 years of continuous open source development at its expense. With the exception of the DSP module ddtdsp, there is only a tiny amount of source code contributed by volunteer open source developers. Ddtdsp development was funded in part by the US government.
3. We announced End of Manufacturing of the FLEX-5000 in May of 2013 and the FLEX-3000 in September of 2014. We have not shipped new units since those dates. This information has been on our website since that time.
4. We have been completely transparent about the support of our products both in updating their status on our website and many communications here and in other venues as Steve referenced just above this post for example. This is VERY old news.
5. We continue to service and support all of our radios. In fact I saw a SDR-1000 in the repair shop this week being repaired. We ceased manufacturing of the SDR-1000 nine years ago. The oldest units are now 13 years old. We won't be able to repair them forever but we still do so far. I frequently meet customers who tell me they are still using and enjoying their SDR-1000 that still runs on PowerSDR.
6. Quality software development is VERY expensive.
7. No amateur radio manufacturer promises to provide continuous free software updates to their radios forever. I am not aware of any competitor that has ever provided significant improvements after they ceased manufacturing. FlexRadio never promised to do that either. However we did that at our expense for about 11 years on PowerSDR.
8. Other companies use the free open source PowerSDR software we developed to compete against us without their company having any internal software engineering expense.
9. As stated multiple times on the community, we are providing direct engineering support to Darrin in his work on PowerSDR.
10. SmartSDR is a long term architecture with an open API and over 100 developers signed up doing cool things. It is completely based on the Internet protocol, which is likely to outlive everyone reading this post. When we start charging for software at an appropriate time in the future, we will be incentivized to develop things customers are willing to pay for. The fact that SmartSDR is not open source incentivizes us to continue development since we don't give it to our competitors for free.
The bottom line: Free open source ham radio software development in perpetuity is a "Going out of Business model."
Those are the facts reiterated here once again for the public record.
73,
Gerald
Ken - NM9P, Elmer
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As I have seen Darrin's excellent work continuing on PSDR and the support FRS has given to him, it ALMOST makes me wish I hadn't sold my 1500!
But I am really enjoying my 6500 instead! And I am looking forward to the many new things to come!
Keep up the good work!
Ken - NM9P
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Thanks, I don't own a pre 6000 radio but I knew all that you stated above.
@All
This has nothing to do with new software for pre 6000 flex radios and all to do with Flex bashing. When given an honest option the negative side goes to "Don't confuse me with facts my mind is made up" I vote Tim close this subject as old news for the 5000 that started it 3 years old.
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Tim - W4TME, Customer Experience Manager
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FlexRadio Systems has NOT stopped the development of PowerSDR.
Granted it has been a while since the last release, as I type this we have in development PowerSDR v2.8.0 that is slated for released later this year. Even though we stated publically 2 years ago that new feature development in PowerSDR would be curtailed, we did not stop adding to existing functionality and addressing certain defects. Specifically for PowerSDR v1.8, we have continued to make code modifications to support the changing landscape of EU band allocations and some other bug fixes. Since the last PowerSDR release have not felt that there were any defect corrections that warranted an earlier release schedule.
In addition, we fully intend to work with Darrin to integrate the PowerSDR v2.8 changes into his code branch.
When we do decide to stop all software development on PowerSDR, a formal software end of life (EOL) announcement from FlexRadio Systems will be made. However, please do not confuse or incorrectly associate software EOL with termination of hardware and technical support for the radio hardware and using the last FlexRadio release of PowerDSR. That will continue for the foreseeable future. Regarding hardware and service support, the current FLEX Trade-IN! program has allowed us to collect and harvest many FLEX-5000s, FLEX-3000s and SDR-1000s that is increasing our parts and board inventory, significantly extending the serviceable life of FLEX SDRs.
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Tim - W4TME, Customer Experience Manager
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Tim - W4TME, Customer Experience Manager
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