See my comments below.
-Tim ----- W4TME -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim N9PUZ Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:17 AM To: Flex Edge Subject: [FlexEdge] New Flex 1500 - Observations and Questions UPS delivered my 1500 yesterday. This is my first SDR. [Tim] Congratulations! Welcome to the club. Installation following the included Quick Start Guide went very smoothly and the radio immediately came to life. Note 1: The QSG mentions the positive lead of the power cable has a stripe and a red band. There was no red band on my cable. Also, you might add a notation in the QSG to show the polarity of the plug and also list the dimensions or a suitable part number for a plug to use if someone is making their own cable. [Tim] Check the Knowledge Base. Use the search function it is the easiest way to find stuff. http://kc.flex-radio.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50447.aspx Note 2: There is a not too loud but fairly annoying "click" in the headphones when the radio switches from receive to transmit or transmit to receive. In CW mode I fiddled with the settings to extend the break-in delay. Is this a result of the known CW issues in the early release of PowerSDR? The symptoms are the same whether I use the WinKeyerUSB or connect a straight key. [Tim] The FLEX-1500 currently uses Windows or the ASIO4ALL audio driver in the interim until the native FLEX-1500 streaming mode USB driver is available, so the anomalies you are reporting are known issues and being addressed. Reference Info for my station: I am using a 2 GHz Pentium 4 computer with Windows XP Pro and 1.25 GB of RAM. PowerSDR shows about 50% CPU usage and DPLat shows latency measurements around 200 with a maximum of 334. In addition to the Flex 1500 I use a WinKeyerUSB and the computer has a USB keyboard. I normally use FLDIGI for digital modes but it was not running as I have not purchased the VAC software at this point. [Tim] When you run Fldigi, you may start to push the Pentium-IV CPU towards the upper end of its usable limits. Just watch out for it. Antenna is a ladder line fed doublet for 80 Meters. I use a DX Engineering balun and a LDG Z-100 autotuner. Everything seems to play well together. I have a piece of braid (stripped from RG-8) connecting the Flex 1500, computer case, and LDG Z-100 case together. [Tim] That is always a best practice. General Comments at Day 1: This is going to be a lot of fun! Tuning isn't second nature yet but I'm getting there. The receiver filtering is wonderful and even with all the storms around the Midwest copy of several 75/80 Meter phone conversations was very comfortable. [Tim] Isn't it fun? I am using my FLEX-1500 on digi modes only and I am starting to like the QRP challenge. 73, Tim N9PUZ _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software. _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software.
