I hear what everyone is saying and I, too, find it a PIA to stand up, turn the box around, diddle with the bumpy bits, turn it back, sit back down.
But the advantage of moving the bumps to the front must be weighed against the aesthetic of having one's shack look like an old fashioned patch cord PBX. I don't know about you folks but I have a whole lot of stuff connected to the various bumps. Most of us are constantly trying to tame the mad wires and cables. I'm not sure I deliberately want to make that worse. On 12/5/11, F Feeney <f...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Brian > > I wholeheartedly agree with what you've written about which way the > radio needs to face. When I was integrating it into my station, I ran > into the same question - if not for the power button on the smooth side, > I'd never touch that side, pretty as it is. What I need to reach on a > fairly regular basis is the 'bumpy' side. So in my setup, the Flex 5000 > is actually more or less sideways, with a little bias towards the bumpy > side. I can reach around to push the power switch, but mostly I need to > access the side where everything plugs in an out. Too bad there isn't a > a second power button and LED on the bumpy side. > > Question - Is it possible to just leave the power switch engaged and > apply and remove power externally to turn the Flex 5000 on and off? I'm > thinking there are probably some circuits that are alive all the time in > the background, but maybe that's not the case. If I can switch power > externally, I will turn the box 90 degrees and face the bumpy side out. > > Kevin, WB2EMS > > > > Brian wrote > > "Noo, it doesn't work backwards. Everything is normal. It is just that > life is much more convenient if the bumpy part faces the operator where > it is easy to get to the extremely-useful bumpy-bits. > > <snip> > > What can I say, my preference is for test equipment where they are > smart enough to put all the connections AND controls where both are > convenient to the operator. I can do that with the Flex (mostly) too. > All the signal I need are on the bumpy side of the Flex 5000. I don't > need anything on the smooth side ... except for the power switch. If > only there were a way to keep that turned on I would never need access > to that side at all. OTOH, the 3000 and 1500 are not quite so ergonomic. > Still, the minimalist 3000 is no real problem since you just don't > change things much there and the 1500 is so small that it is easy to > pick up, change the cables, and move on. So, all in all, I am pretty > happy with the state of things ... so long as the part of the 5000 with > the on/off switch faces the wall. (And while this may seem funny, I > really am quite serious.) > " > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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/ > _______________________________________________ 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/
