On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 8:36 AM, Burt <k1...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Why is it some say it is time to move on AFTER they have their say? >
Because some want the last word. :-) > I have no idea what Deep Impact is, what is it? A video game? > Deep Impact is the name of a mythical replacement for PowerSDR. Some time ago Flex announced that they were going to produce a better program than PowerSDR. For that to make sense you have to realize that PowerSDR was intended to be a temporary hack (used in the pejorative for a program written hastily and crudely to prove a point and expected to be discarded). PowerSDR was going to be discarded in favor of a much more elegant and expandable program that would allow for all kinds of improvements and changes to be easily made. But Deep Impact was taking too long so Flex extended the life of PowerSDR to fill the gap. Now they have so much time, effort, and money invested in PSDR that they can't abandon it even though it is limiting their ability to do some of the new and cool things people have asked for. So instead of abandoning PowerSDR and switching wholesale to a new program, they have to somehow keep PowerSDR and rewrite its problems away without abandoning it completely. The only problem is, this will take longer and cost more. Can they do it? I certainly hope so. But it does mean that some of the things that I and others were hoping would come along with the new program will be long-delayed or even abandoned. > As an aside I have received PRIVATE emails from others or sold or are > selling the 1500 to go to KX3. Thought comes to mind, why are they private? > Is Flex feared? > That is a good point. Part of it is how people are jumped on by the Flex adherents (sometimes called Fan Boys or Fanbois). Many times people who express a negative opinion of Flex are verbally attacked on the lists so not many want to go there. The problem is, there is a fuzzy line between justifiable complaint and unreasonable attack on Flex. Also, there is a fuzzy line between reasonable defense and offense. I spent a significant amount of time on the eHam SDR forum trying to provide a reasonable defense for Flex from some people who, IMHO, clearly crossed the line into unreasonable attack on Flex. But one of their points, that dissent on the official Flex reflectors is punished, has a grain of truth to it. It isn't punished by Flex itself or its employees, but it is punished by the Fanbois. So, you bring up a good point. The 1500 is not all it is cracked up to be. I agree. As I pointed out, mine has not worked properly at some level for the entire time I have owned it, well over a year now. Oh, it is always something different and when Flex fixes one part, something else seems to go wrong, and the problems can be subtle enough that either I figure I can live with working around them. Not now. My 1500 is currently unusable with a problem that seems to be uncommon. So, again, I cannot use my 1500. But this gets back to a key point that many people seem to forget and that is -- Flex Radio Systems is about the only company in ham radio right now doing anything to move the technology forward ... or rather, they were. If all you want is a QRP box to run CW, I can definitely see moving from the 1500 to a KX3. Frankly, Elecraft has a better track record than Flex does for releasing products that work first time. I bet that the first version of the KX3 will work just peachy on CW. OTOH, for me, experimenting with digital modes, modems, and codecs, there is no alternative to the Flex radios right now. None. Good, bad, or indifferent, there is no other company providing the tools, albeit flawed, that Flex Radio Systems is providing. But FRS wants to sell to hams who are, frankly, rather conservative. In spite of what it says, the rank-and-file of the amateur radio community does not readily support new things. You only have to look around to see that there is nothing new in Amateur radio and there hasn't been for many years. Gone are the days where amateur radio pushed back the boundaries of wireless communications. Now the boundaries are pushed back by commercial and government research, with some of the bits trickling down to amateur radio later. This has hit FRS and they have recognized it. Originally their customers were the early adopters and experimenters like me. As they grew their market became more mainstream. They had to suck in the mainstream hams in order to keep their growth going. But that means that they have to focus on mainstream features that hams already understand, not new things that only the early adopters understand. Oh, eventually they can roll out the new things but only after the ideas have percolated down through a bunch of QST articles talking about how great the idea is. By they time that happens the technology is mature, not new. So, FRS has to downplay the new and different in favor of doing the tried-and-true better. This is a really different approach and it means that they are dropping guys like me in favor of 50 guys who are potentially new customers IF they don't get too far ahead of everyone else ... and that they do CW well. ;-) So is it any surprise that Flex has eschewed any talk of Deep Impact and instead concentrated on PowerSDR? Not hardly. > I have recommended many to buy the 5000, and at least 5 based on partially > or wholly on my say. I have no experience with the 3000 but I bet it is a > good deal. I have all three, the 5000, the 3000, and the 1500, and the 3000 has been just about bulletproof. It is, IMHO, Flex's most robust and reliable product offering. It is what I carry with me when I travel. Yes, you can do more with the 5000 and the 1500 cool and tiny, but the 3000 just seems to hit a sweet spot. Great radio. The only reason I would buy a 5000 over a 3000 is to get the 2nd RX. If you aren't going to do that, get the 3000. > I have not recommended the 1500, yet I am amazed what it CAN do in such a > tiny box. QST is the biggest manufacturer butt kisser, yet their review of > the 1500 is very lukewarm based primarily on CW issues. Yes there are > workarounds like a seperate keying device, but after adding a power supply, > microphone, speaker you might as well get the KX3 (of course that may have > its own set of problems AND it is vaporHARDware). > Well, my power supply is a $7 2A@12V wall-wart, the mic is just a cable I made up to go to one of my existing mics, and my "speaker" is the set of earbuds I have for my iPhone. Things like that needn't cost much. And it is true that the 1500 is a "bird in the hand" while the KX3 is a "bird in the bush". But I agree, the 1500 is still not completely ready for prime-time. Still, I have no intention of replacing it. It is a very elegant piece of hardware that still suffers from software problems. I am confident that Flex will work out the bugs so the 1500 will continue to find a home in my shack ... and in my go-kit backpack along side the 3000. > I love the 5000 panadapter, I CAN MAKE IT SO BIG and when you get old that > matters > And you don't even need to be that old. :-) I like BIG screens a lot more these days than I used to. :-) -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 br...@lloyd.com +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.916.877.5067 (USA) _______________________________________________ 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.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
