DX spot recommendation - off topic

I never expected this thread to get so much activity...  Anyway let me state what drives me to do this:

1) I love the Flex Radio concept.  I work with computers all day long.  I write software for a living.  The flex 6000 platform is what I have been waiting for. A network based radio that can handle not only radio control but also audio over the network.

2) Like people that own a Ferrari they tend to group together and enjoy their expensive toys together.  Flex owners for the most part seem to be like this.  We all love our radios, except maybe Burt, and we like to tweak and discuss how to make them even more cool.  So I feel an attachment to this group.  Being able to give back, help out, suggest, and be a part of this group makes it even more worth while.

3) Time.  We all suffer from the fact that we just don't have the time we wish we had.  I would love to have my days free to do nothing but scroll up and down the bands but I don't.  When I do get to operate which is rare these days I'd like to help so I don't spend my precious time scanning about without finding anything interesting.  Yes I could sit and call CQ and sometimes I do but it would be nice to know that something is happening somewhere on the bands.

4) My dream of my personal ideal station.  Everyone is different.  I have reads threads about people that bought a flex or were considering it but worried about no knobs.  For me no knobs is no big deal.  In fact I'd give them up any day for the software abilities Flex 6000 provides.  The fact that Maestro will give me the knob experience, when I want it, is like having the best of both worlds.  But what is my dream of the ideal station?  How about yours?  For me this is what I seem to think I want and this is based on my little bit of operating so far:

I want four kinds of operation:

1) Sitting at my primary PC with the mic, key, and radio near by.  This is my "local" mode.

2) Sitting with my laptop somewhere else around the house.  This is my "detached" mode.

3) Using the Maestro somewhere else around the house.  This is my "detached knob mode".  I have a really nice back yard view of the foot hills and I have nice table in a shaded area under my deck.  I dream of having my laptop and/or Maestro sitting out there on a hot afternoon enjoying the weather and view while doing something I also enjoy.

4) Finally - Remote.  I would love to be able to have my laptop just about anywhere in the world and be able to fully remote by station.  Can the Maestro do this?  I have no idea yet but even if not having my desired functionality on the laptop would be fine.

So these are my "kinds" of operation.  Now what do I like to do.  Well I seem to be all over the map.  I still like CW and I've got my copy speed back up to about 20wpm but I think my mind is going because while I can copy the words by the time I'm copying the next word I've forgotten the previous one.

I also like digital modes.  I like PSK, JT65, etc.  Lastly there is SSB.  I'm not much of an SSB user but I have done it.

So based on these "kinds" and "modes" the Flex Radio fits me perfectly.  Already, without much effort I can accomplish just about all four kinds of operation.  I've put in a relay switch, a power switch and a VPN so I can truly do just about what I want remotely.   I can only see this getting better.

But for my remote or detached modes there is a problem.  While I can run SmartSDR remotely I can't totally control other features yet like my amp.  DDUTIL is a great program but I have had trouble with it when operating remotely.  IE I sort of need a remote desktop connection to be able to see the UI of DDUTIL to make amp changes.  While this is very doable it is kind of a pain and frankly I want my amp and ALL of my other devices to be accessible to me as network devices.

So with respect to the amp which I control via RS-232 I have put in place a network IP to serial device.  This works perfectly except now DDUTIL is not able to talk to it (unless I put it in real comm mode which I don't want to do).   I did try playing with the DDUTIL TCP server but could not find all the commands I needed to control my amp.  Plus DDUTIL sort of requires that my local PC be alive and well.  Most of the time it is but what if it is not?

So all of these things drive me towards creating what I call my own dream station:

SmartSDR - It is a great program.  I wish it had a few more features but it is very close to ideal.
AmpControl - I need to write something that is similar to DDUTIL but does not require to be run on a local PC with a serial port to my amp.

If I'm going to go that far I'd like to integrate some things to help me use my time more effectively:

a) Flex radio spots.  I wrote HRI Agent and the website as a fun exercise.  I hope more people will start to use it as it would be a nice way to know what other flexers are up to.

b) DX spots.  While I don't have a great antenna or station I have been surprised to sometimes punch right through and get a contact.  With limited time I can't scroll around and look for this as Burt would have me do.  I would rather have a spot list and let me then decide if I can hear/work them.  Howards idea of putting them on the SmartSDR display, as an option, would be perfect but so far Flex has not provided the ability to do this.   And from what I can see so far there is no API that I have access to that would allow me to tell SmartSDR to display a call sign on a pan adapter. 

So to handle a and b I need to do it myself.  But I don't want to re-create SmartSDR and have my own panadapters etc.  Luckily Flex though the API in the radio gives me much of what I need.  It's not perfect but it is workable.  

With a few hours yesterday I have been able to create a window the size of my pan adapter and paint calls in this window so they line up and remain in correct alignment with the pan adapter.

As I told Howard in a private email I have to take this a step at a time.  My first attempt is crude and does nothing more than create a window the size of the pan adapter that you can position over the pan and my HRI Agent paints calls based on frequency into this window.  As you move the pan adapter back and forth the window is updated through information received from the radio to keep the calls aligned over the particular frequency they are on.  Here is a very crude initial demo:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7578983/SpotsPreview.mp4

In the above demo the spots are dummy data.  As you can see there really is no signals well perhaps none at those places.

My first goal will be to get this to be fully functional with both data from the HRI website (HRI Agent) as well as dx spots of your choice.  By putting it in its own window that just aligns with the pan I have a bit more control.  I can change how things are displayed, provide controls for filters, etc.  

The only downside to this first approach is that my little window has no clue right now where SmartSDR is.  You have to align it currently.  This might not be so bad but I don't know for sure how people operate.

When I watched the 1.6 video recently I noticed he changes the orientation of the pans a fair amount.  This will not be cool with a window you have to manually realign.  But this is just my first pass.  I have hopes to find SmartSDR, drill down and find the pan, and align automatically with the pan.  This unfortunately is not as easy as it seems because with WPF many of the display areas are just big areas.  They really don't have IDs like older windows programs did for various sections.

Some day if Flex provides a way to pump data onto their display then my efforts so far will make it easier to support that.

So back to my goal:

I want SmartSDR
I want a spots/activity system that helps me use my time better and connect with other ops
I want full control of my station regardless of local, detached, or remote

And on my spots/activity system I am interested in the following:

a) The Flex HRI users.  I'd like to know where you guys are and use it to link up. The HRI website has already done this but it would be cool to see it on the pan or a display by the pan as in my example.
b) DX spots.  Still fun even if I can't hear them to go and search for them. It might help me learn my filters better to see that a station is at 7.010.5 and see if I can drill down to see them and maybe work them.
c) Local decoding.  This is my personal preference.  While I copy CW pretty well there is enough horse power in our current computers as proven by CW skimmer that we could have decoding going on on seen signals.  I'd like to feed that data into the spots.  I think this is a feature some would like, some would not.  It could be turned on / off.  But if on you could quickly look and see a summary of the decoded data looking at that frequency.  Of course this is useless for voice users so it would be an option you could turn on for CW and different modes.

So item C is a personal desire and the problem is that I don't want to re-invent the wheel.  I don't want to have to write my own CW decoder.  I'd rather work with the CW skimmer folks to see if they would add a mode to report the decoded data to my program.  Same thing with PSK, and RTTY.  There seem to be a number of decoders out there.  I'd rather use those and see if I can integrate them.  But this all takes time and a lot of work.

Anyway this hopefully gives most of you a picture into my mind of what I dream of.  Much of what I can can be done now.  I just hope to pull it all together in way that helps me to use these features whether I'm local, detached or remote.

Hi Al,

Thanks.  Yes if Flex would just add the following to the API:

API calls:

Add - Supply, user gen Id, pan key 0x4000000 etc, frequency, text to display, things to set if clicked

Edit - Supply existing Id, text to update, things to set if clicked

Delete - supply existing Id

Then that would be a great start.  In the ideal world if added or edited entries could have a delete after XXXXX ms then that would make management very easy.

I could see something like this:

info add id=92 pan=0x4000000 freq=7.026 text="WS7M" mode=CW ttl=300000 options=CTCM

So this line would add the text WS7M over frequency 7.026 on pan 0x4000000  It would give it unique ID 92 and it would live for 5 minutes.  The options field could allow control of things like just display only, click to tune and change mode, etc.

To update an item you would call

info edit id=92 freq=7.070 text="WS7M" mode=DIGU

This would update the item, refresh the ttl etc.

To delete an item:

info delete id=92

Then it's gone.  With this simple little API external software would have all the tools they need to manage displaying stuff on the pan.

I could see some more options:

None - Just a display item.  No special features
IconOnly - No text just display an icon
CTCM - Click tune and change mode
etc.

But yes... without this trying to overlay the pans is difficult and if they move around really there is no easy way to keep them aligned.

Now JT-65 lends itself completely to a fully automated contest.  You setup your radio, start the software and click run and go for a long long vacation and come back to find you won the division.  Who needs an operator!?