Hi Guys, Now that I am recovering from Field Day, I have a few observations to share. I took the Flex-Radio 3000 out for a spin. I used my standard Win7 64 bit machine with PowerSDR 2.1.2_RC3. Backup in case of problems was PowerSDR 2.0.22. I put up a 520 Foot loop at 10 feet feed via four to one balun and 450 ohm twin lead for an antenna. We tuned the antenna on 160 meters for 1.840 Mhz. The ATU matched it fine on all band from there. Gain of the antenna on the upper band was wonderful.
We started on 20 USB with no issues and pleasant operating. Then moved to 20 CW with good results. I was using N1MM with a WinKey unit to do the keying. We had a friend of mine that is blind stop in an wish to operate. That is when I learned that we have not thought about the operation of PowerSDR with the visual reading programs required for the blind to use to operate the radio. When his dongle was put in and operating there were multiple issues with the running of PowerSDR. We had to remove his dongle and capability to use n1mm for him to operate. I had to do the logging while he operated the radio with a little feedback from me on frequency and filter width. He liked the ability to narrow down the filters and mouse control of the frequency tuning. If we could get some feedback to him via audio information, most likely through a screen reader program, he would be very interested in owning a Flex-Radio 3000. He did state the panadapter display would probably be of no use, but he could put the filters to real use. Over all I was pleased with the performance of the Flex-Radio 3000 during field day with the PowerSDR. I did run into another minor issue, that I do not think anyone at Flex can resolve, though. The rig was so popular, that other than working with my blind friend, I did not get to operate it much :-) Oh, and one last comment, we did not test it much on any mode but CW. Once the guys found how easy it was to use they went wild on CW. We worked all bands from 160M through 6M. 73 Jim Fuller N7VR -- http://www.n7vr.org International TCP/IP Gateways Robot Operator -- http://www.ampr-gateways.org MTAPRS NET Server Operator -- http://www.mtaprs.net CWOP-2 -- http://www.wxqa.com IRLP Node 3398 - http://irlp.fuller.net Original ARECC contributor _______________________________________________ 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.
