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.

How do I know that the GPSDO is providing frequency stability and accuracy for the FLEX-6000?

Tim - W4TME
Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
edited February 2019 in SmartSDR for Windows
When the FLEX-6000 is powered on, the GPSDO module starts a multi-stage initialization process which can take a few minutes to go through the start up stages. If the FLEX-6000 was completely powered off by having the 13.8 VDC removed from the radio, the start up time will be a little longer. If you have a GPSDO enabled FLEX-6000 after staring the radio you should observe the power LED on the FLEX-6000 flashing yellow. This indicates that the GPSDO module is warming up. At this point you may start SmartSDR and connect to the radio. The frequency accuracy and stability will be slightly less at this point of the initialization process because the GPS has not acquired a sufficient satellite signal for disciplining the TCXO, but the radio is fully operational. After the GPSDO has warmed up, it will start to acquire a satellite lock and this is indicated by the power LED flashing blue. Depending on your GPS antenna location, it may take several minutes for it to acquire a stable lock on the GPS satellites. Once the GPSDO has acquired a suitable lock on the GPS satellites, the power LED on the FLEX-6000 will show solid blue. At this point the GPSDO is providing maximum frequency stability and accuracy for the FLEX-6000.

Answers

  • philip.theis
    philip.theis Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Are there any such indications for external disciplined sources?
  • Tim - W4TME
    Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
    edited December 2016
    This is a great conversation that's a little separate from the main topic, so I created a new topic to continue the discussion. Please reference the new topic here: How do you connect an external frequency reference to a FLEX-6000?
  • Tim K8XS
    Tim K8XS Member
    edited August 2013
    It would really be great if the power on LED could change color when the 6000 is locked to an external reference.
  • W5UN_Dave
    W5UN_Dave Member ✭✭
    edited February 2019
    My GPS will not connect. The antenna is in the same location as my navigation GPS which has no problem locking to satellites. The indicator on my 6700 stays orange color. Settings says that GPS is installed in my 6700. When I first power up my 6700 from a cold start, the indicator will blink orange and then stays solid orange, It never turns blue. Any ideas?
  • Tim - W4TME
    Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
    edited December 2016
    This is a great conversation that's separate from the main topic, so I created a new topic to continue the discussion. Please reference the new topic here: My GPSDO will not connect
  • W4YXU
    W4YXU Member
    edited April 2016
    Any visual indication or "place to look" would be adequate for me.
  • Steve-N5AC
    Steve-N5AC Community Manager admin
    edited February 2017
    Also see http://gsfn.us/t/46rnq for the GPS screen which show GPS frequency error Steve
  • W4YXU
    W4YXU Member
    edited April 2016
    Or, as an "idea" some method to determine just what the f6k is ACTUALLY locked to. With no way to be sure if the box likes my 10mhz (or that I don't have a defective connector - been there!) I tend to be less confident of just what frequency I am actually looking at! Paranoid - yes.

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.