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Tim - W4TME, Customer Experience Manager
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Ria - N2RJ, Elmer
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With every new hardware invention the software looks more and more underfunded and unloved. The Flex 63/6500 is now obsolete hardware yet the software hasn't come close to maturity yet.
I like Flex The company, I love Flex The hardware, However, The software leaves me cold.
So much more can be done to make it sing from the rooftops, and in doing so it would beat the best at pretty much everything we could ask of it. Let's hope SSDR doesn't become the achilles heel of Flex.
Lee, Elmer
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73 W9OY
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Peter
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Mike - VE3CKO, Elmer
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I don't Flexradio will or should break the $1000 price barrier. So much cost cutting would have to be done, housing, components, software and there will even more competition for the low end SDR market. May never be able to recover the development costs of that lower end product. I think they have positioned themselves quite good, mid to high end SDR market, but you never know. The 6800 or whatever the replacement of the 6700 will be, is more likely the direction they will be going. To separate it from the 6400 it will have to have 144/432 internal and/or some other features such as ROD, rotator on demand. Yes I just made it up, but they had been developing something related. I vision an external box connected to SmartSDR via ethernet to interface to common rotators controllable via SmartSDR/Maestro. Like the tuner it should be able to at the base of a tower via relays to directly control rotators, or in the shack interfaced to common rotator control boxes. On second thought maybe ROD isn't a good name after all, as some of will be playing with it.
Lee, Elmer
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Mike - VE3CKO, Elmer
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Got this macro working when I switch band to 2m:
DD6TTP065; set power output for DEMI 2MLDPA
ZZRT1; turn on RIT button
ZZRF+00900; set RIT offset
ZZXS1; turn on XIT button
ZZXF+00400; set XIT offset
Thanks for the suggestion Lee, using DDUtil macros was much easier than it looks just was too lazy to learn I guess.
Lee, Elmer
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73
Lee, Elmer
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Ria - N2RJ, Elmer
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Chris Tate - N6WM, Elmer
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but I would hope a new QRP rig. existing one is old tech, so that seems to make the most sense. Something that is small, full featured and would have decent live on batteries and supported SSDR-W as a control interface.
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QRP Flex (~$1000ish)
-Built in tuner
-Built in WiFi AP (for the iOS app)
-Built in USB-C port (Internal USB -> Ethernet bridge)
SmartSDR Enhancements
-Plugin
architecture similar to Waveforms for USB connected devices (Just let me have a UI window as part of SmartSDR and send me the serial port data. I'll figure out what to do with it. We need to control station peripherals remotely!)
-Remote Improvements (Fix the fragmented packets, Digital mode support)
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Ria - N2RJ, Elmer
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What does the KPA500 not do that you need. I use DDUTIL and it tracks the bands. You can also preset the power with DDUTIL.
Sometimes you want the ability to not to have to use DDUtil. Controlling DDUtil is also kind of hard when you're on a smartphone. Compare that to the PGXL experience on iOS. I have an "amp" panel where I can turn the amp on/off and monitor SWR, power, temp from in one window.
Mike - VE3CKO, Elmer
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Ria - N2RJ, Elmer
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1KW out (single LDMOS). No SO2R, but all of the other goodies - MEffA, ethernet, etc.
Light like the SPE 1.3K-FA for travel.
That would interest some people.
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Chris Tate - N6WM, Elmer
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1. Its a natural fit for the flex 6600-6700. it fully supports the same SO2R functions, in one box. Rather than 2 transceivers and 2 amplifiers, one of each does the job, and very well. It fully tracks band and mode data for 2 slices simultaneously, and is instantly ready for use.
2. Full power - the 2kfa peels back power to mid level at RTTY/keydown duty cycle. this includes FT8. the PGXL handles these modes as full power, no problem.
3. Cable reduction and simplification. The PGXL only requires a lan cable on the same network to interface with a flex 6000 series radio. this includes keying the amp and band mode tracking. This significantly reduces the cabling needed for the KPA500 and E2KFA.
4. lightweight full power. Its weight is similar to a KPA500, but it puts out full legal limit.
I have basically fully retired my KPA500 and relpaced it with the PGXL. it is now my backup amp. If I want lower power I reduce the drive. Any low power flex/4o3a amp would have the most value if it supported the same dual band so2r functions IMO. Im not sure a lower power would be significantly cheaper for that reason.
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Peter
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I think echo was a typo....
Technology designers are now drawing from biological terms to describe the complex interactions between parts of their engineering systems.
They are also using theological terms to describe marketing systems - e.g. someone may be a technology "evangelist" - i.e. someone whose job it is to help other people understand and adopt the new technology.
It is kind of interesting how the different disciplines are adopting each other's terminology. It reminds us of how interconnected everything actually is...
====end of sermon ===== LOL
Ken - NM9P
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Here's hoping.