Amen Brother! I can second that as a long-time RF engineering ATE systems development engineer/manager. One 2-plus hour conversation with Gerald last year at Central States VHF convinced me that he and his team have their collective "stuff" in one sock and that they don't do anything that isn't the most appropriate solution for the design/economic challenge at hand. That's why I'm using a FLEX-5000A as the centerpiece of a new 10-band 6m to 3cm VHF/UHF/uW station - replacing all of my single-band riceboxes, etc. I'm looking forward to the fun of using it!
73, Dan KB5MY/6 DM13nc > I, myself, am getting a bit weary of this thread. As a retired > electronic engineer with over 15 years of circuit design and 25 years of > software development under my belt, I know from personal experience that > in any design situation there are often 2 or more methods of solving the > same problem, all of which are perfectly legitimate. There is no one > "perfect" solution. Each method has its own advantages, and has its own > warts. The mark of any good design engineer is the ability to deduce > the optimum solution for any given problem, taking into account ALL > factors, including economic & business factors. > > Unless we were a party to all of the design discussions & experiments > which led to the choosing of firewire over the other available > technologies, we cannot fully understand the reasons why firewire was > chosen. Gerald has stated that all of the technologies discussed in > this thread were > investigated and firewire was found to be the only one that fully > supported the data transfer rates required by the FLEX-5000 (and now the > FLEX-3000). To state otherwise is to consider him to be less than > truthful, or to be a poor engineer. Personally, I have implicit faith > in his engineering judgement. Gerald has provided us with an > outstanding communications system, a true advancement of the radio art. > Obviously he is an engineering genius, and not a bad businessman either. > > One more thought on the choice of technologies. Each of the > technologies discussed may be theoretically capable of the data transfer > rates required. However, these technologies do not operate in a vacuum. > They are part of an overall system consisting of the radio > hardware/firmware, the computer hardware, the operating system, and the > radio software. Realize that Gerald has no control over 2 of these 4 > pieces. Most of my software development was for PC-based real-time > process control systems. Trust me, neither the Windows operating > systems nor the PC were ever designed to optimize real-time processing > of high-speed data streams. All of this adds to the complexity of the > decision that was made. > > The FlexRadio Systems series of software-defined radios are marvelous > additions to our hobby. Enjoy! > > 73, Ray, K9DUR > > > > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio Systems Mailing List > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ > Knowledge Base: http://kc.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: > http://www.flex-radio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
