I've had the Flex for almost 30 days now and have really enjoyed it for the most part. For one thing, as a cw only operator I am not fond of the loud mechanical T/R relay used in the 5K. After a lot of searching I was able to find a set of headphones (thanks to John N3WT) that keeps out 90% of the relay noise with the radio sitting about 24"'s from the operating position. Now operating the Flex fast break-in with about 15 - 18ms delay is a pleasure, also very little if any pops or clicks at that delay setting and with the new headphones virtually no relay noise.
I decided to try a trackball on the Flex, I love the way it works.. Much better than the mouse I was using. I find tuning with the ball is great, very precise and easy to tune.. Using the search and pounce technique during this weekends CQ CW WPX contest was the best time I have had operating in a contest in years.. Working very weak signals between extremely loud signals was a snap, it's hard to describe how clear and clean the weak signals are even nestled among the 20 and 30 over S-9 signals. The receiver on the 5K is outstanding.. Listening to SWBC stations is a pleasure, rich clean audio unlike any other radio I've used recently. Including the flagship radios of the other US manufacturers. I am just touching the surface of this amazing radio and find new things about it every day. Whoever said that the Flex Radio family of radios will put the excitement back in ham radio is right. I haven't felt this enthused about ham radio since I started over 32 years ago. Issues I have not yet resolved: I still need to figure out how to get rid of the images in the MW BCB because I like to do some BCB dx'ing from time to time and also search out LW NDB's. I have some digital programs working, but now need to work on interfacing my small solid state amplifier using DDUtil. Also need to figure out how to properly use the second receiver for split etc. I can using a break-in delay of ~200 ms, but fast break-in is unusable due to what I assume is the tx signal getting into the second receiver and causing a very loud noise in the rx when I let up on the TX. I may be doing something wrong here, still needs investigating. I am well satisfied with my purchase and am considering the little 5W qrp rig when more details about it become available. 73 Tim NZ8J _______________________________________________ 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/
