Dear FlexRadio customers, A small number of customers have reported a problem where the receiver DDS may stop operation during a receive to transmit transition. Some customers first experienced this for the first time when upgrading to the latest firmware release. One or two customers reported the problem with earlier releases.
This is almost certainly due to a timing issue in the firmware that may show up on some specific combinations of PCs and firmware. That means that one PC may be stable with a given firmware release and another may not. We are aware of the problem and are working toward a solution. In technical terms, there is most likely a threading problem in the communications firmware that receives control signals from the PC. Eric has homed in on the area of code that most likely has the problem but he has needed a way to reproduce the error. I think I finally discovered a method yesterday to reproduce the problem. Please note that due to the USA Thanksgiving holiday this week, there won't be much progress until the following week. This is our top priority in the software area and we will get it resolved. Given the fact that this is likely a software timing glitch, we recommend the following: 1) If you are stable with your current firmware/PC combination, stick with it until advised otherwise. 2) If you would like to assist us in defining and solving the problem, please test various firmware version/PC (single core or dual core) combinations. 3) Report any results on the bug tracking system, which you can access directly from the PowerSDR menu bar. 4) Do NOT report any of the results here because we have no way to track them on the reflector. That is what the bug tracker is designed to do. There is one other software issue that we are working on. The ATU software does not always report back accurate data to the tuning form. We have found that the ATU is actually tuning properly but the form may or may not report the successful tune. This is a data communications protocol issue between the radio and ATU that that will be resolved. In the interim, you can check the PowerSDR SWR indication to see if you got a good tune, even if the ATU form does not report it. Also note that earlier versions of PowerSDR allow tuning at full power, which can cause SWR shut back due to the high standing waves produced during the tuning process. The latest SVN version sets the tune power to 10W to prevent this problem. If you use the production version of the software, just set the tune power to 10W in the Setup options for the transmitter. Please note that SVN versions of PowerSDR software are considered ALPHA code. Official releases are considered PRODUCTION versions. You can keep multiple versions of the software on your machine and switch back and forth as desired. We provide the SVN versions for the enjoyment and convenience of those who are comfortable with using ALPHA software. ALPHA means that the code is likely to contain bugs and is published so that those who enjoy testing such code can help with the debugging more quickly and reliably than would happen in a typical closed environment. If you like to play with the latest daily release, come help us. If that is not your cup of tea, please stay with the last production release. That is the beauty of open software, you have a choice! If you are a SDR-1000 owner and you experience bugs in the SVN releases, please report them on the bug tracking system as well. This is the best way to see that they are resolved in a timely manner. We are committed to continuing support of the SDR-1000 in future PowerSDR releases, even though we receive no further revenue from such support. On a final note, there are no known hardware design issues in production FLEX-5000 units. In fact, there were minimal changes required between beta and production radios. There are also no electronic differences between the first and second production runs. Virtually all changes between the first two runs are mechanical in nature for improved manufacturability. Note, we are now shipping well into the second production run and are doing everything in our power to get the backlog out the door. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the USA. 73, Gerald Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR President FlexRadio Systems Ph: 512-535-4713 Fax: 512-233-5143 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.flex-radio.com <http://www.flex-radio.com/> _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
