If I have two 6400's can I take a SCU from one and install in the other?

James Skala · April 2020

Robert Lonn · April 2020

Now THAT is an interesting Question???? But would that NOT make one inoperative and become a paper weight? Or is their more behind your question James???

Robert

James Skala · April 2020

I just got another working 6400 for 750.00 and thought I wonder if I could upgrade my 6400 to 2 SCU? I also would then have spare parts.

Martin AA6E · April 2020

Would require a big rework of Flex hardware and code to support dual SCUs IMO. It would be cheaper and easier to trade in your 6400 and buy a 6600.

James Skala · April 2020

What is the difference in hardware between a 6400 and 6600

N8AUM · April 2020

Tim must be napping lol

James Skala · April 2020

It's not that important just wondering. Now I have 2 6400. My mind was working overtime, what could I do next.

K3SF · April 2020

this my guess only

for starters just off the top of my head

starting at the antenna, the antenna switch matrix and associated sub-controller
would need to be replaced with one from 6600

the h/w and s/w in the radio server to recognize two scu data paths to process

maybe even the audio mixer would now have to be modified to handle four audio paths rather than just two....

if you want capability of 6600, then sell both 6400's and buy 6600
and
still have some cash leftover i would think for multiple antennas

BUT
with Two 6400's you could create some interesting setups with multiflex

for example
1. could be setup with four separate computers each running ssdr
where each one is running a separate slice...

    side note: you can run multiple virtual pc's on one physical PC
       this would give you capability to run four ssdrs...
       each doing their own thing

2. one 6400 in shack and another 6400 at friends house maybe two thousand miles away for some interesting geospatial diversity (both receive and transmit)

just saying you have options
you just need to figure out what you want to do and achieve

Paul K3SF

Al K0VM · April 2020

Physically, I think you could move the AD converter and band filters from one radio into the other. But it seems likely that the firmware knows what the configuration was when it left the factory and would not allow the second SCU to function. And there may be other physical differences as well ( antenna selection, etc. )

AL, K0VM

Dan-N7HQ · April 2020

I like how you think, James, but no, you cannot add an SCU to a 6400 and make a franken-6600-ish.

There is a multitude of reasons, but the most significant is the 6400 uses a different FPGA board and doesn't have a connector or related components to host a second SCU. If you got beyond that, the SCUs in a 6600 are higher-performance on the 6600. If you managed to get beyond that, you would need to add another preselector board. And then you would need firmware changes to support it.

Compared with the 6700,6500 and 6300, the modularity of the 6600/6400 series radios is beneficial, especially when we need to service them, but the component assemblies are not like legos.

Now, there is nothing to stop you running two (or more) instances of SmartSDR connected to two different radios on the same PC, I do that all the time. Two radios operating RTTY on different antennas and bands is an obvious one for contests.

Another scenario is one radio at my QTH and the other remote. For example, tt's pretty cool to be trying to work an EU station split from my Austin station and knowing exactly where the QRM is in the EU. Or, checking band conditions to know how well your signal is making it there, and vice versa. There have been many times when I put the PGXL on standby because I knew that I didn't need it.

73,
Dan, N7HQ

If I have two 6400's can I take a SCU from one and install in the other?

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