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Lost Modulation on AM - Intermittantly

James Del Principe
James Del Principe Member ✭✭
I operate on an AM round table almost every morning on 75 Meters with my Flex 6500. Intermittently, I lose modulation although the carrier is fully present. It can work fine for months and then fail without warning. Allowing the Flex to sit for a time will restore the normal operation. I own two identical microphones, both Yaesu MD-100 s.    I can swap mics and then use the mics on another rig. They are not the cause unless they both have the same fault. However, they have never failed on an old FT 2000. This has never happened on SSB to my knowledge. I searched for this issue but do not see anything written on it. The release level is 1.12.1.35. This happens with or without an amplifier.  There are no long transmissions and lots of rest time between transmissions. Any thoughts? Has anyone else experienced this?    Best 73 to All, Jim

Answers

  • WX7Y
    WX7Y Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Something simple to try, Turn the radio off and then unplug the Power for a minute or so, if that doesn't do it make sure your Profiles are exported and then do a HARD reset and reload your Profiles all except the DESKTOP one. 
    This may correct your problem
    Good Luck
    Bret 
    WX7Y


  • James Del Principe
    James Del Principe Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    Thank you for your ideas, Bret. I will try that the next time it fails. Problem has been so intermittent it is difficult to troubleshoot. I swap mics and then it works but when I next swap back, it also works.... I think it is internal and maybe SW so I will try what you suggested.   73, Jim
  • Tim - W4TME
    Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
    edited February 2020
    Intermittent problems are very hard to diagnose since they are impossible to reproduce.  I see that you are using SmartSDR v1.  There have been several fixes in the SmartSDR v2 / v3 releases that addressed intermittent keying issues that were caused by race conditions.  If this begins to occur more frequently, you may want to consider upgrading your SmartSDR software to get the latest bug fixes.
  • James Del Principe
    James Del Principe Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    After several contacts it failed yet again. No indication of anything wrong, just no modulation on SSB this time. First time I noticed it fail on SSB.  I backed up my profiles and did a factory reset. After restoring the profiles. it still did not work. No RF output on SSB.
    Upgrading to release 2 or 3 seems like an expensive bug fix. Are bug fixes not included in release 1?

  • James Del Principe
    James Del Principe Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    After several contacts it failed yet again. No indication of anything wrong, just no modulation on SSB this time. First time I noticed it fail on SSB.  I backed up my profiles and did a factory reset. After restoring the profiles. it still did not work. No RF output on SSB.
    Upgrading to release 2 or 3 seems like an expensive bug fix. Are bug fixes not included in release 1?

  • James Whiteway
    edited February 2020
    I would call.Flex first
  • Bill -VA3WTB
    Bill -VA3WTB Member ✭✭✭
    edited February 2020
    James, you would not be getting a bug fix, you would be getting a few hundred of them. Coming up to speed would be a very good investment.
    Flex position would be I believe is that only critical performance updates will be supported in V1. I guess we can argue what is critical.
  • James Del Principe
    James Del Principe Member ✭✭
    edited February 2020
    Bill, I can appreciate your thoughts but this is the only issue I have....and we are assuming this is a software bug that is fixed in a higher release. That is not known for certain. I have no need for the features in release 2 or release 3 as I do not operate remotely and do not share my Flex with others. The purchase, for $ 200.00, would be to solve this one bug.....maybe.... possibly.    
  • Tim - W4TME
    Tim - W4TME Administrator, FlexRadio Employee admin
    edited February 2020
    No, not all of them.  SmartSDR v1 is in the product life cycle where only critical defects are added to SmartSDR v1.

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