Re: [Flexradio] Test
Yup... the community web site is now the focus of almost everyone's attention. Mark me down as not a big fan of the new site. I use it because there's really no alternative. The discussions HERE on this list over the years were variously engaging, stimulating, frustrating, informative, histrionic, rude, funny, and interesting. I learned a lot here. The general organization of the Community site just somehow doesn't seem as conducive to free-flowing back and forth discussions. It's post a question/problem/idea (you must choose a category) and get a response. The new site IS however nicely conducive to people pontificating on topics about which they know little and randomly complaining to Flex. Never mind, now I'm just randomly complaining. Gad! I think my post could be summed up as I remember the good old days, we had an active email reflector, and ... -- THAT is scary. Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: FlexRadio [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Larry da Ponte Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 2:23 AM To: Tom k2bew Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Test The new web based forum has a feature to send all posts as emails so I don't have to scan the web site to see if anything is happening but if I want to post I must log in first which is not quite as convenient as sending an email. You can post screen shots and the search is pretty good and you can edit your last post if you see you made a mistake. The flex staff post frequently when not crushed with work. -Larry On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 9:45 PM -0800, Tom k2bew tombew...@gmail.com wrote: There is now a online forum on the Flex website where I think most traffic that used to be on this list has moved too. I just rejoined the list and was really surprized at the lack of messages compared to a couple years ago when I was on it and it was very busy. 73, Tom K2BEW On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 11:58 AM, Bill and Sue wrote: Hi all Just a test. Did I delete myself from the e mail list. Have not seen a comment out here in over a month. lol Bill N1EHM ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz To opt out of the Reflector: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz To opt out of the Reflector: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz To opt out of the Reflector: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz To opt out of the Reflector: http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
Re: [Flexradio] Flex 6000's are shipping?
I'm also very surprised we haven't heard more about the radio's release. C'mon guys... we're dying to hear the details!! quote With us being charged to find and report the bugs. Most have been running them through the mill. /quote ??Are they shipping to general users, or is this more of an extended beta program? quote The guys at flex are really getting the issues cleared up and moving the software to release 1.0 /quote So, the software shipping with the radio is not 1.0? Can somebody elaborate on what is and what is not supported in the software so far? Perhaps they can also tell us a little about the operating experience? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Acronis Backup
Acronis is a VERY good package. But like all backup packages, it depends on you to set it up wisely: 1) Don't allow incremental or differential chains to go on forever. Personally, I do full backups after every 5 incrementals. Your needs may vary. 2) RUN THE VERIFICATION STEP. Backup software wants to impress you with how fast it runs. So, by default, they all leave the verify step OFF. Turn it ON. 3) Monitor the results. Acronis will send email with the log for each backup job. Reading the log email for the systems I backup at home is one of the first things I do every morning. 4) Test your backups. Restore something every now and again... just to be sure. This step helps me sleep well. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Help with latency
It's not Outlook, per se, that's the root cause of the DPC latencies. User-mode programs can't affect DPCs. So, it's something Outlook is DOING. I'd guess it's generating a great deal of activity on your network, and your network card is causing the DPC latencies you describe. I suspect this is also WA4SCA's problem as well (assuming he's using Carbonite to backup to the net). Solution: See if there are new drivers for your network card. If not, you can always try swapping your network card with a different type (or, if you're using on that's integrated on the motherboard, adding a plug-in card and disabling the one you have now in the BIOS). Video cards and network cards are THE most common causes of excessive latency. After those two, waaay down on the list, are storage adapters. Hope that helps, Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: FlexRadio [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Alan Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 7:58 AM To: 'Nick Pugh'; FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Help with latency Nick, Which version of Outlook? My ancient Outlook 2003 does cause a DPC spike, but not enough to lose synchronization on either my XP or WIN7 machines, even with the Operation Mode at Normal. Try bumping up the Firewire Operation Mode a level. I do have another program, Carbonite, which is very bad about DPCs unless I do that. That does introduce additional audio delay, especially in satellite operations. For satellite ops, I turn down the Operation Mode to Normal, and disable Carbonite for the pass. Sadly, they are only 10-20 minutes these days. 73s, Alan WA4SCA -Original Message- From: FlexRadio [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Nick Pugh Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 4:08 AM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] Help with latency Hi all Outlook is causing latency issues with the flex running XP Pro. Outlook causes the flex to go nuts. What has the community found out how to make flex and outlook to run together Thanks Thanks nick ARS K5QXJ EM30xa 30.1N 92.1W Office 337 593 8700 Cell 337 258 2527 Helping UL become a world Class Engineering and Educational School ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] 6000 Series SOFTWARE Questions
quote Nice and functional are two different things. /quote Indeed. I'm not at all convinced that doing the kind of screen-drawing you'd want from the GUI console would be nicely done in Java. The advantage to using WPF and C# is that you automatically get hardware acceleration via DirectX when it's available. This can be a big win, for exactly zero extra effort. No, you don't get the client running on other platforms. Oh well. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] 6000 Series SOFTWARE Questions
Having a different client for different platforms is not a problem if the interfaces are published Having the interfaces published would be most excellent, I agree. Peter K1PGV ___ 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] 6000 Series SOFTWARE Questions
If the 6000 and SmartSDR live up to their promise, the 6000-series definitely will be the radio I've been waiting for. BRAVO Team Flex, for some truly ground breaking work. Kudos for doing something bold and different. The details on the software seem a bit sketchy so far. 1. On what OS and version does the initial version of the software run? 2. What graphics package is used in the software for display acceleration? 3. Did I read that the audio is kept in the radio on the first release? So the demodulation is done in the radio, not in SmartSDR? If this is the case, things like filters, notches and noise blankers are also done in the radio not in the application? 4. How does this all interface with VAC? 5. What are the USB ports on the radio for? 6. How is CAT control accomplished? I read we have our own protocol, but I'm not sure what that means. If I want to control the 6700 with MixW, for example, it expects to send comments via serial port. Thanks for whatever details you can provide - And I apologize if I've missed some detail in the existing marketing material or that's been discussed here on the reflector already. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] 6000 Series SOFTWARE Questions
Thank you, Tim. Your clear answers are much appreciated. So... is the demodulation and filtering done in the TI Media processor or in the FPGA? Or Both? Not to be a pain, but just for your info: There appears to be a bit of an anomaly in the Transceiver DSP Performance Comparison graphic in the 6000 Series brochure. For the 6700 the graphic says Texas Instruments TMS320C6A8167 + XC6VLX130T -- Do you *really* use a TMS320C6A8167 (which is the C6-Integra, a deprecated part) or the TMS320DM8167 DaVinici which replaces it (and which is referred to elsewhere). Again, I'm not trying to nit-pick, I'm enthusiastic about the design and I'm trying to understand it as fully as possible. WPF, at this point, is a very good choice for the Windows client. The graphics acceleration available through DirectX, and the ability to profile and tune graphics display in WPF, will undoubtedly be very helpful. If Flex documents the IP interface, at some point even third parties could write client apps -- using, for example, WinRT (so you could play radio on your ARM-based Windows tablet, for example). Thanks again, Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison, W4TME Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 3:52 PM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] 6000 Series SOFTWARE Questions Peter, See my comments in-line below Tim Ellison, W4TME Product Management, Sales Support FlexRadio Systems^(TM) 4616 W Howard Ln, Suite 1-150 Austin, TX 78728 Phone: 512-535-4713 Ext. 223 Email: t...@flexradio.com mailto:t...@flexradio.com Web: www.flexradio.com http://www.flexradio.com logo On 5/19/2012 3:38 PM, Peter G. Viscarola wrote: If the 6000 and SmartSDR live up to their promise, the 6000-series definitely will be the radio I've been waiting for. BRAVO Team Flex, for some truly ground breaking work. Kudos for doing something bold and different. The details on the software seem a bit sketchy so far. 1. On what OS and version does the initial version of the software run? The client will be Windows 2. What graphics package is used in the software for display acceleration? WPF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation 3. Did I read that the audio is kept in the radio on the first release? Yes So the demodulation is done in the radio, not in SmartSDR? If this is the case, things like filters, notches and noise blankers are also done in the radio not in the application? SmartSDR runs in the radio. The light weight GUI client is called SmartSDR-Win and it is a separate piece of software. 4. How does this all interface with VAC? TBD. 5. What are the USB ports on the radio for? Software updates for non-Internet connected radios and things like the FlexControl 6. How is CAT control accomplished? I read we have our own protocol, but I'm not sure what that means. If I want to control the 6700 with MixW, for example, it expects to send comments via serial port. There will be legacy CAT functionality on the GUI client to interface with the radio. I am sure it will use virtual serial ports. Thanks for whatever details you can provide - And I apologize if I've missed some detail in the existing marketing material or that's been discussed here on the reflector already. A lot of it is TDB until we get into coding that functionality. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [FlexRadio] Flex 6000 series
No, they can't. PowerSDR is partially open source. Therefore they cannot charge for it. Well, strictly speaking, that's correct. They can't charge for the open source software itself. However... Nothing prevents Flex from charging for SUPPORT. This is the same model that several major Linux vendors use (such as Red Hat). And, of course, they can charge for updates to their firmware and drivers, which are proprietary. And the changes they make to the open source portions of PSDR could rely upon those (proprietary, distributed for an annual charge) firmware or driver changes. One COULD get the open source code in source form and change it to use the OLD firmware if one were so inclined. There are, therefore, many ways to indirectly charge for open source software... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Here it goes
quote My dpc latency is about 150 microseconds. Only on occasion will I get that great spike. /quote This is the way of Windows, I'm afraid. What you're describing is textbook for either (a) a bad-behaving driver or (b) several devices all becoming active at the same time with each queuing a DPC (with the driver for at least one of those devices moderately misbehaving). I've seen the second case occur, for example, when network, video, and the disk (due to sudden paging) all kick-in at the same time. The average DPC latency in a Windows system is usually pretty good. The almost always the MAXIMUM DPC latency that'll hurt you. As previously suggested, you HAVE to find the offending driver(s). I'm sorry to say, this is not always easy. There was a (WHQL approved) driver for a particular network card that would cause *tremendous* DPC latency every 3 seconds, when it went through a long test to see if the speed on the network connection had changed. Simply bad programming by the driver writer. I once had a client who had a problem with an embedded Windows system that had a problem caused by maximum DPC latency that only occurred once a day, under heavy load, in their lab in Austria... THAT was difficult to track down. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Game Changer Ahead!
My hope? A module for the Flex-5000 that adds an Ethernet port for control instead of FireWire. (I'm aware of the latency/jitter issues, however I believe them to be solvable, and a guy can dream, right?) +1 Or, better, a brand new Direct Sampling radio that connects to the PC via Ethernet. Flex has been selling a very nice direct-sampling radio to the government for some time now. (The CDRX-3200.) So they know how to build a DS radio AND they have the software to make it work. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Yes, me too... pretty please!?!? Game changer? Makes me a bit apprehensive seeing as how I just got my 5000 and haven't powered it up yet. I would not be a happy camper to have bought one of the very last of the OLD ones instead of one of the first of the new ones. Do you expect the 5000 to be the last radio that Flex builds? The fact that new products are developed and released is the way of the world. People bought iPads and then the iPad 2 was introduced with more features for the money. People bought iPad2s and then the new iPad was introduced, with more features for the money. Hey... come to think of it, I bought an SDR-1000 JUST before the Flex-5000 was announced. I never felt bad about my purchase. Time... marches ON! Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] \Deep Impact\ By Another Name?
I am really loving all of the build up. As are we all, I'm sure! Flex are being pretty scrupulous about managing the info to keep us guessing. Even the keywords on their web home page don't let the cat out of the bag... there's just a place-holder for new architecture. There IS an interesting, single, reference to VR-Kernel in the web page keywords, however. H P ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] FW: Flex 3000 Question from a Newbie
quote Or, just turn down the drive as you are supposed to. /quote SUPPOSED to is the key phrase here. Isn't the point of ALC to be a safeguard? Obviously you don't set all knobs right (I *love* that phrase) and rely on ALC to take care of the level-setting for you. Won't ALC save you from roasting your amp if you forget to turn down the drive power? There are lots of amps that don't have 100W inputs. The KPA500 needs 30W-40W of input, for example. It's easy to forget to turn down your output to the right level: Say you're listening around barefoot, you hear some DX and decide you need the amp. You flick on the amp and in the heat of battle you neglect to turn down the drive on the Flex. WHAM! I can't see how ALC can be a *bad* thing assuming it's used properly. Am I missing something? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Dedicating cores?
quote Is there any advantage to be gained in dedicating two cores to PowerSDR on a 6 core machine? /quote Not usually. Windows does a pretty impressive job of understanding both the physical and logical configuration of multi-core/multi-thread machines and trying to keep a given process on the same physical processor (regardless of which multi-threaded core is available on the processor). Unless your system is *very* busy with other things, and PowerSDR itself is being regularly starved for CPU time, there's no advantage -- and there's usually a DISadvantage in fact -- to affinitizing PowerSDR to a particular set of CPUs. Note that regardless of the affinity you choose for PowerSDR, interrupt service routines (ISRs) and Deferred Procedure Calls (DPCs) will still run on any processor in the system. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Flex-1500 New User
Hi Don, I'll try to answer a few of your questions as I'm a Flex-1500 user myself: quote 1) For some reason when starting PSDR (v2.2.3), on a number of occasions, I lose all data written into MEMORY. Reprogramming is becoming a pain. Any ideas? /quote If by memory you mean information stored by PSDR, I find this happens if I do not exit PSDR normally -- such as if my system reboots with PSDR running. quote 2) My CPU usage indicator is 60-95% is this normal? /quote Normal is such a difficult word. Do you have anything ELSE running on the laptop while running PSDR?? If so, the very first thing you want to do is shut all those things off. This probably includes any Antivirus program you have running. After this, what's the CPU utilization look like? 60% is usually fine... 95% is difficult. quote 3) If I shut down PSDR and my laptop and leave the Flex-1500 R/T unit on, the next time I restart PSDR/laptop it requires that I power down/up the Flex-1500 to work again. /quote That how mine works, too. quote 4) I have no FWD PWR output indication on the PSDR TX METER display. Drop down meter menu is set to FWD PWR. My two inline QRP wattmeters show normal specified watts out on CW and SSB. /quote That's a new one for me... anybody else?? I'll have to leave the rest of your questions to others on the list. Best of luck with your Flex-1500... it's a great little radio! Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] {SPAM?} Re: Flex 1500 using External Transmitter for AM
Why would anyone use ham radio when it would be so much easier just to use a telephone? There's so much talk about radio in my house, my wife often absent mindedly refers to her cell phone as her radio. As in I forgot to charge my radio... I try to correct her, but... well... it IS a radio. Sure, it's not a HAM radio, but... you know... I guess it COULD be :-) I've played with AM on my SDR-1000... it was definitely fun. I found some very nice folks to talk with whenever I tried, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] operating
An often overlooked function in the Flex radios that helps enormously in MY digimode operating -- and that I hear almost nobody ever mention -- is the ability to set the receive bandwidth filter to an arbitrarily large size say, 6K or more ... in DIGU mode. In some of the radios (not the 1500, however) you can also have a very wide transmit bandwidth. This allows you to have a very wide waterfall in your digimode program (assuming your program of choice supports this... MixW does) that REALLY makes working digital mode pileups easy. You just point and click from within your digital mode program and you don't have to touch the PowerSDR controls at all. This also has the advantage of giving you a nice view of what's going on above and below your bandpass filter in PowerSDR. Using a very wide receive bandwidth makes it mostly unnecessary to work split with multiple VFOs in digital modes. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] AMD chip
Neal's advice and Jim's advice is solid, and matches my experience. Just to expand on and emphasize something Jim mentioned in passing: One thing to keep in mind as you shop is that latest and greatest is not always best: You should avoid the AMD FX-series (bulldozer) chips at this point. While being highly promoted in the gaming arena, this chipset series has a group of features that are not properly/fully utilized by Windows (or any operating system) at this point... and the result is that the performance of AMD FX-series chips is not great. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] AMD chip
Window is extremely clever about multi-core, multi-thread, and NUMA scheduling. Applications programmers are, by and large, still learning how to write efficient applications that take full advantage of multiple processors running in parallel. We could have a whole mailing list just to discuss why this is, but in any case, I digress. The problem with the FX series chips is in the way it makes multiple cores/threads visible to the OS and the relationship among those cores. It uses a new topology that Windows doesn't properly understand (and probably won't understand until Windows 8, by the way). So, as Neal said... the chip works OK. But it does not lead to anything like optimal system throughput. Hardware innovation is sometimes a double-edged sword, Peter K1PGV From: Neal Campbell [mailto:abrohamn...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 10:23 AM To: Peter G. Viscarola Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] AMD chip I did a test last month with a FX-4100 4 core CPU that is supposedly clocked at 3.6-3.8GHz and I really felt it wasn't as good as a X4-955. Now, AMD has priced it in the same range as the X4-955 so its in direct competition with it. It seemed like PowerSDR was faster on the FX-4100 but the rest of the system felt sluggish. This FX chip seems like a few good ideas about 2 years ahead of its time. Its major advantages are it is better at multi-core processing (which windows and programmers are not ready to accommodate) and it tries to offload all floating point math off to the processor on the graphics card, especially if it sees a ATI HD6000 series video controller. My testing, by the way, did use this video card. 73 On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Peter G. Viscarola pete...@osr.commailto:pete...@osr.com wrote: Neal's advice and Jim's advice is solid, and matches my experience. Just to expand on and emphasize something Jim mentioned in passing: One thing to keep in mind as you shop is that latest and greatest is not always best: You should avoid the AMD FX-series (bulldozer) chips at this point. While being highly promoted in the gaming arena, this chipset series has a group of features that are not properly/fully utilized by Windows (or any operating system) at this point... and the result is that the performance of AMD FX-series chips is not great. Peter K1PGV ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizmailto: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/
Re: [Flexradio] Optimized XP or Win7 Configuration
quote Just remember that OEM copies do not allow any support from Microsoft (thats why its cheaper). You are supposed to call your OEM (the company that supplied your system) for any support queries including Microsoft. Just remember and realize you will not get very far with their Customer Service with the cheaper product. /quote Neal took the words right out of my mouth. Selling OEM copies of Windows is also a license violation (for the OEM selling the copies, not for you USING that copy). Unless you plan to do your own support, I would suggest that buying an OEM copy of Windows is a false economy. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Flex-1500 and USB 3.0?
quote I've certainly learned more than I expected by way of this interesting thread. However, I was hoping to hear from the designers at Flex as to possible USB 3.0 support. /quote Newer versions of USB are 100% compatible with older versions of USB. So, if you have a computer that has USB 3 ports, you'll be able to talk to USB 2 and even USB 1.1 devices. Because the 1500 doesn't NEED the added speed, there'd be no advantage to adding USB 3 support to the Flex-1500... they're just be the extra cost of redesigning the component, and using a more expensive and complicated device. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Flex-1500 and USB 3.0?
quote Right now we can upgrade the Flex radios at any time with a more powerful procecessor to meet future needs. Although PowerSDR is limited to a single processor today, hopefully there will be a future version that will allow for the possibility to use networked processor to do even more. /quote Exactly. Putting the processing on the host, and not on the radio, opens the radio to limitless possibilities. Now if we could JUST lose the Firewire and USB interfaces, and replace them with Gigabit Ethernet we'd really be in great shape. I'd buy a 5000 in a second if it used GigE. While it has 1394... not a chance. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Setting power output on PSK-31 with Power SDR and Fldigi?
Hi Michael, In my experience with the 1500, I've found that I get a much better looking signal by keeping the drive low... like you are currently doing, around 40 or so. At that level, my IMD meter gives me very positive readings. If you want less power than you get from that drive level, I would use TX gain. For what it's worth, I *have* noticed that if I set the PSDR drive between 75 and 100 for my 1500, and then put the output through my amp the resulting signal is definitely not as nice... definitely poor readings from my IMD meter. Hope that helps, Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Michael Tondee Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 1:58 PM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: [Flexradio] Setting power output on PSK-31 with Power SDR and Fldigi? Please forgive me if this seems a redundant question but I'm trying to change over my digital programs from the Minideluxe/HRD/ DM780 combo to Logger 32 using fldigi with the the N2AMG fldigi gateway. I'm using a Flex 1500 with a 5 watt in/50 watt out homebrew amplifier and PowerSDR 2.2.3. and trying to limit my power to about 20 or so watts out . I usually get about 50 watts out in the tune mode by setting the drive in PowerSDR around 40. Should I set the drive to obtain full output from the amp and then use TX gain to adjust the power? Or should I use a combination of TX gain and drive to regulate power out. I know there are articles out there on using PSK with PowerSDR or using fldigi with it by my situation is a little different because of the configuration described above and I want to avoid a 'dirty signal. Tnx and 73, Michael, W4HIJ ___ 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/
[Flexradio] 1500 Checksum Errors?
Hi folks, Everytime I power-up my 1500, I get a new entry in checksum_error.log, similar to the following: 7/15/2011 6:40 PM RX Image Gain Checksum Error DB: 0 EEPROM: FF Calculated: 0 RX1 Image Phase Checksum Error DB: 0 EEPROM: FF Calculated: 0 PA Power Checksum Error DB: 64 EEPROM: EC Calculated: 64 There's a Knowledge Base procedure for the 3K and 5K, but it doesn't seem to apply to the 1500. How do I recal and reset the checksums? Thanks, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] DPC's and other things that go bump in the night
The DPC is labeled as Wdf 01000.sys Unfortunately, WDF01000.sys is the name of one of the wrappers (i.e. frameworks) that driver developers can use to write device drivers for Windows. It is not, itself, a driver for a specific device. Instead, it's used to support many different drivers in the system. So, unfortunately, this information alone doesn't narrow down the culprit much. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [Flexradio} Band data from a Flex-5000 to the Elecraft KPA500 amp?
A very nice little amp but Elecraft is going to have to get over being impressed by Elecraft and reduce the price before it is going to take the market by storm. Except for the K3 fanbois, of course. It strikes me as odd that it wants 30W-40W of drive power for 500W out. And *never* more than 40W during operation. Maybe it's just me, but that seems like an awfully unusual value to choose. 1W, 5W, 10W, or 100W... sure. But 30W?? Clearly there's something I don't know about the K3 going on here. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Parallel Port for F3K
Further, check where the headers go. I have a couple of boards that the header goes to chips that were not installed!! Absolutely. VERY common. You have to wonder why they went to all the trouble to engineer these ports and then make them unusable. There are lots of things that are engineered on mainboards and not used or where either the connectors or the circuitry is not populated. You're designing a main board, you need to have a Southbridge (equivalent) for the USB, SMBus, and other functionality you need, and the part either includes all the serial port logic in it already, or your Southbridge has a connector to a Super I/O chip that has serial and parallel port logic in it. You can't really buy a part that doesn't HAVE these things in it. So, you design your mainboard, you wire-up the traces just in case -- There's no cost to put the traces down. And you can always not populate the socket. And the socket can be useful for various OEMs/IHVs during debugging. So, why not populate them? Because it saves some tenths of a cent, and Microsoft doesn't require it as part of getting the Designed for Windows logo. In fact, Microsoft have been actively DIScouraging parallel and serial ports on systems for years... it's called Legacy Free PC. The general belief is that using these ports tend to confuse the technologically naïve. Seriously. OTOH, back in the days of the IBM Thinkpad, I seem to recall a story about IBM removing the printer port (parallel port) from one of their Thinkpad models, and corporate types howling in protest. How would they print their Powerpoint slides? The parallel port quickly returned on subsequent models. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] The 30m Band Utilization Chart -- 2 June 2011
SRI... this discussion probably isn't that relevant on this list, but... Your chart is quite good. Thank you. Regardless, I would suggest losing the dial frequencies altogether. As a very almost exclusively digi-mode operator, and only being a ham for 5 years or so, I have never understood the point of specifying dial frequency. I don't even get what it's supposed to mean. Honest! When I use MixW, I set the dial frequency to whatever I want the bottom of the waterfall display to be. I set the receive filter bandwidth on my Flex to about 6K. When I see a signal on the waterfall in my digimode program within that 6K bandwidth that I want to copy, I click on the signal to start decoding it. The specific frequency to which I'm listening is very clear. My digimode program tells me what it is. The dial frequency? Irrelevant, isn't it? The dial frequency could be ANYthing, as long as the signal is within the waterfall display in my digimode program. MultiPsk and DM780 work the same way as MixW in this regard (except their max waterfall width is narrower). What am I missing? Peter K1PGV ___ 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] Rx Audio and Mic In on Flex-1500
I've been playing with my new Flex-1500 for a couple of days now. BTW, plugged it into my laptop, installed PowerSDR (and VspMgr, and VAC, and MixW)... DONE! Worked first time. I took all the defaults. No pops, no clicks, no problems at all. With all of 3 watts I had PSK QSO with someone in Panama. I already love this radio. But I have some sort of conceptual gap in my understanding that I'm SURE somebody can clear up for me: 1) The signal is filtered and demodulated by PowerSDR in the computer... so why is the phones connection on the front panel of the radio? How does the audio GET there (back across the USB connection)? Is there a way to use my laptop's sound card and speakers to hear the radio audio? 2) Similar to the above, but for the microphone connection: The mic connector is on the radio, not into the computer. Does the mic audio travel back across the USB from the radio? Is there a way to use my laptop's microphone as input? Confused, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Rx Audio and Mic In on Flex-1500
Steve WA7DUH said: quote Can you use your computer audio? SURE! You must use the Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) connection in PowerSDR. You also need Virtual Audio Cable software that creates a virtual audio cable connection between the VAC interface in PowerSDR and your computer mic and speaker devices. That is it. Simpler than it sounds. /quote Ah, so! Thanks so much. The program is supplied with VAC and it's called VAC Reapter. Michael, W4HIJ said: quote I believe you can also accomplish the same thing with VAC if you configure it a certain way but I don't know how and I think there are latency issues. /quote Exactly right. I gave it a try, and there IS latency. I got it done quite a bit, but it's definitely noticeable. So, I set VAC Repeater up sending the audio out to my laptop speakers/headphone and taking the audio from my laptop microphone in. The ONLY problem I'm experiencing with this setup is that the VAC audio out to the speakers isn't muted when I key MOX and transmit with the mic. Sort of annoying, you know? Especially with the latency. Any magic cure for this? This is all icing on the cake, by the way... I'm loving my Flex-1500. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Choppy Audio with digital modes
quote I've noticed that the outgoing audio on my Flex 5000A becomes choppy now and then when running digital modes. ... Any ideas? /quote What else do you have running when you see those drop-outs? In MY case, I run the excellent DX Labs suite of programs, and often find that I have to turn off Spot Collector or else the CPU and disk utilization on my system causes occasional breaks in the transmitted digital signal. As Tim rightly said, you can often mitigate this by using a larger buffer. But you MIGHT want to check what else you have running on your system. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [FlexEdge] Screaming video
Darn good... makes me feel like I'm there. I sure hope you have a sign on the webcam warning people they're on candid camera! Thanks for setting this up Dudley, P -Original Message- From: flexedge-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexedge-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Brian Lloyd Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 10:29 AM To: supp...@flex-radio.com Cc: flexra...@yahoogroups.com; flexe...@flex-radio.biz; Flexradio Subject: Re: [FlexEdge] Screaming video On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 7:24 AM, FlexRadio Support, Dudley Hurry supp...@flex-radio.com wrote: I am streaming from the Flex booth.. http://www.livestream.com/wa5qpz all day I hope.. Oooo, there's the back of Greg's head! Just a few cracklies in the audio but otherwise pretty good. -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 br...@lloyd.com +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.931.492.6776 (USA) (+1.931.4.WB6RQN) ___ Flexedge mailing list flexe...@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software. ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [FlexEdge] Firewire vs. USB vs. Ethernet
I've been meaning to switch the systems in my shack to fiber for years. Never have gotten around to it... quote The question is what is the price point for doing so? I could find a 1gb fiber PCIE card when doing a quick look, but no prices. /quote Fiber PCIe cards are readily available for between $100 and $200... on NewEgg, for example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833114032 (I'm not recommending this card, I'm merely providing it as an example) For point-to-point links you're fine. But where things get seriously pricey is getting your infrastructure established. A single run of MM fiber isn't so bad, because you could terminate it with a converter. But the price of switches with SC connectors is pretty high. Your best bet is looking around to find surplus equipment. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] SSDs and Windows 7 32/64 bit
QUOTE Just remember to take it out of Billy-knows-best mode by disabling its insistence on driver signing. /QUOTE I would respectfully suggest that disabling driver signing is not a good idea for the average person. In fact, I would suggest it's not a good idea for ANYone. There is absolutely, positively, nothing wrong with the OS requiring loadable kernel-mode modules to be unambiguously identified as to their origin. That is all driver signing does on 64-bit Windows. Not one thing more. To disable driver signing is to open your system up to random things being loaded into, and executed as part of, the operating system. In my personal and professional option, this is at the very least unwise. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] My 1500 amazes me!
I can't imagine ever operating a radio again without a panadapter! and once you go Flex its hard to go back to the old knob +1. True story: I sat down in front of a Yaesu FT DX 5000MP at my local HRO just a few days ago. There was an Italian station calling CQ NA slightly off frequency. Without really thinking, I tried to tune him in... but I found myself looking at the little (SM-500) station monitor perched atop the radio and trying to tune his signal by sight! I quite literally had to stop myself and think OK, this is a radio without a panadapter... I need to tune this guy by EAR not by EYE. It was disconcerting. Really! I know it's nuts, but that's how reliant I've become on (and found I've become of) the panadapter. Even when searching by ear for a weak station, when I find a signal, I find myself zooming the panadapter in and trying to peak him visually... shifting the bandpass around noise and trying to exactly capture the signal. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Notch Filter and PB tuning?
I'd just like to second, or is it third, what someone said several posts back: A manual notch filter would be very useful VERY useful. Lack of a manual notch filter as always seemed to me (a digital mode addict) to be a significant omission. I often want to notch out an annoying signal (like a CW signal) that winds-up in my passband and that captures my AGC. Yes, even when my passband has been manually narrowed. Being able to pull the passband around is INCREDIBLE, and I couldn't live without it. Yet, there are still times when you want to notch something. I remember submitting a request for enhancement about this back when the SDR-1000 was in full production. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Flex 1500 magazine reviews, IP specs.
QUOTE Just wondering if QST, CQ RadCom etc having been waiting for PSDR v 2.0.22 release version before proceeding with reviews of the Flex 1500? /QUOTE RadCom just reviewed the 1500 this month... I just read the review yesterday. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [Commercial] New member in the Abroham Neal family!
Nice work, Neal. Bravo! 2. it is using the new OCZ Revo 120GB PCIe solid state drive which bypasses SATA interfaces and talks directly over the PCIe bus; H... if it's not using a SATA interface, what KIND of interface does it provide? Do you have to load special drivers for it? If not, what driver does Windows load to support it. Keep doing the good, practical, work for the benefit of us here in the community Neal. Again, well done! Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Maximized Window CPU Use
I agree with all of this, it's very well thought-out and said. Very well indeed. The only thing on which I beg to differ is the claim that multiple cores add to context switching overhead. Actually, they don't... Windows is VERY smart about context switching now, and takes into account some very sophisticated parameters about the system's physical configuration: NUMA, Hyper-Thread, MultiCore, etc. The one thing I'd add is that it's VERY important to differentiate between Hyper-Thread systems and MultiCore systems. They are VERY different animals. A system with 2 physical processors (sockets) where each of those two processors is capable of 2 HyperThreads will be significantly inferior in performance to a system with 2 physical processors (sockets) where each of those processors has 2 MultiCores. So, in a word, MultiCore GOOD, HyperThread NOT AS GOOD. Finally, while Tim didn't allude to this in his excellent summary it's all the rage on the intertubes... in terms of speed of memory access and NUMA architectures: Whether a system has one shared memory bus or one memory bus per physical CPU isn't particularly important for running PowerSDR. The NUMA architecture machines will have less memory contention every time, and that's fine, but it's not an important factor in choosing a system for PowerSDR. If the above is too technical for some readers, the best (admittedly biased) simple summary I can provide is at this point, for the current generation of chipsets, systems using AMD chipsets tend to be better than systems using Intel chipsets. P -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Tim Ellison Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 8:51 AM To: David Walker; jsqu...@msn.com; flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Maximized Window CPU Use First off, I'll add my disclaimer that anything I say here may be trumped by Neal and you should take what he says as the absolute truth. He lives in this trench daily. I stand on the outside and look in. A CPU /mobo upgrade will make a big difference if you take a big enough leap. For as long as I can remember, I have used exclusively Asus mobos. I have been very pleased with both the Intel and AMD versions. In my last technology upgrade cycle, I replaced just about all of my PCs with AMD Phenom CPUs. I personally think that they have lower ambient DPC latency and faster PCI-E bus I/O. I have no hard data to prove this point. Intel seem to do this hokey thing with IRQ stacking that makes tweaking peripheral bus performance difficult. PowerSDR is a mathematical application. Lots of floating point math. The most important aspect of designing a real-time audio processing application is getting data off of the peripheral bus, be it Firewire, USB or gigabit Ethernet, through the memory controller and to a CPU that has sufficient L1/2/3 cache to quickly pass the data into the CPU for number crunching. Add multiple cores to the mix and you have context switching to deal with that can be a hindrance, but not as much now as say 3-4 years ago due to updated Windows operating systems. So I look at CPU cache, the speed of the front side bus and the speed of the RAM when choosing a CPU/mobo. One reason I like the AMDs is the memory controller is on the CPU and that speeds things up. I also never get a motherboard with on-board graphics. They are convenient, but can be slow and steal RAM for buffering. If you are looking for a tried and true bill of materials for building a high performing PC for SDR applications, get one from Neal. He is the man in this regard and is current with the latest toys. -Tim -Original Message- From: David Walker [mailto:vk...@bigpond.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 7:56 AM To: Tim Ellison; jsqu...@msn.com Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Maximized Window CPU Use okay Tim no worries. I understood not a word of that :-) Do you think a motherboard and CPU upgrade would make any difference as Jim suggested? They radio works fine with my application screening or minimisation methodology but I guess I am keen to get a the system working as well as I can. Plus I've never been happy with this Gigabyte board I have the bios features are fake. I can upgrade to a i5 650 CPU and an Asus P7H55-MUSB3 motherboard quite easily. Would that be sufficient or would you recommend a Quad Core AMD system? cheers, Dave VK2NA On 01/12/10 23:28, Tim Ellison wrote: This behavior has been around since the PowerSDR 1.x days. I suspect it has something to do with the GDI+, the class-based graphics API for C/C++ applications in VS. -Tim -Original Message- From: David Walker [mailto:vk...@bigpond.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 1:35 AM To: Tim Ellison Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Maximized Window CPU Use Hi Tim, When I run PowerSDR minimised
Re: [Flexradio] Maximized Window CPU Use
QUOTE On the other hand, if I start just one program with a high DPC driver, PSDR freaks out, gives me quivering panadapter trace, and won't transmit until I restart. /QUOTE Yup… If your device has a request that’s waiting behind that of another, misbehaving, driver, there’s nothing you can do but suffer the ill effects. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] FlexRadio-An Important Perspective
I don't write code, myself, but I just chatted a buddy who works for Google who pointed out a couple of things. First, at least at Google, two lines per programmer per day would be considered about right. Re: Google. REALLY? I find that *exceptionally* surprising. But I digress... I *do* write code for a living, and I've managed development groups for many years. I can tell you one thing: Trying to measure or define Lines Of Code (LOCs) per day is a pointless exercise. I've never met ANYone in the industry who thinks this is a valid measure. It varies widely based on the language and the maturity of the project, for one thing. There are periods of time during a project where the number of LOCs written per day actually goes NEGATIVE. If you MUST have a number, since the publication of The Mythical Man Month in 1975, the generally accepted industry standard for debugged LOC per day is 10. There's no reason to think this is or isn't the right number. But the number of LOCs per day -- and whether the assurance required by a pilot or a radiology tool is a reasonable metric -- doesn't really bear on Flex or PowerSDR. It seems to ME what matters is that (a) some folks are annoyed that their radios don't work like they expect, and (b) the folks at Flex are working hard --apparently VERY hard -- on correcting the problems. They're also working hard on advancing the features present in the software. Whether the result is acceptable is something that only each customer can determine for themselves... regardless of the number of LOC that any given developer writes. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] DPC's ?? Why a problem?
I have an audio studio with 3 different MOTU interfaces, a couple of Iomega interfaces, a Digidesign interface, and a couple of SymbolSound DSP processing units, plus several digital hard disk recorders, and numerous digital effects boxes from various manufacturers. The computers are Mac and PC's running Sonar, Live, Digital Performer, Cubase, Audition, FruityLoops, and many other DAW's. I can tell you -- for absolute certain -- that Pro Tools has for YEARS had the same problems that PowerSDR has today. The way that Avid has worked-around these problems is by qualifying specific computers for use with ProTools and publishing configuration guidelines. See, for example: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=377823 Note the comments about DPCs in the Avid KB. I suggested Flex take this same approach this years ago, but was told it was impractical. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Legacy vs. Current (?) Firewire Drivers?
IF you're NOT using a Windows-supplied 1394 host controller driver, AND the vendor-supplied driver is working for you, THEN there's no reason to change it. IF you ARE using the new Windows 7 1394 driver, I would recommend that you switch to the legacy driver. I've seen enough problems with the new Win7 13494 driver that I generally wouldn't recommend people use it until it's fixed. In general, vendor supplied drivers are sometimes better and sometimes worse than the Windows supplied drivers. Some vendor drivers are junk. Some vendor drivers tend to improve the performance of their devices (sometimes greatly) at the risk of overall system throughput (and often increased DPC latency). And still others are very competently developed and provide features that the Windows-supplied drivers don't. Unfortunately, the best solution can only be found through trial-and-error, Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex- radio.biz] On Behalf Of Neal Campbell Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 2:00 PM To: Tim Ellison Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Legacy vs. Current (?) Firewire Drivers? But if you have a chip-vendor specific driver (like the TI driver), do you still think we should use the legacy driver? 73 Neal Campbell Abroham Neal Software www.abrohamnealsoftware.com (540) 645 5394 On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 1:44 PM, Tim Ellison telli...@itsco.com wrote: Yes, it does. -Tim -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Steve Sterling Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 12:44 PM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Legacy vs. Current (?) Firewire Drivers? Does the recommendation to use the legacy driver also apply to us Win7-64bit users? Steve WA7DUH On 10/24/2010 9:25 AM, Tim Ellison wrote: The yes, use the legacy driver (which is actually the Vista driver) by all means. There is a bug in the new Win7 1394 drivers that manifests itself as several problems; the excessive DPC and CPU load is one of them. -Tim -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Russell Magnuson Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 11:36 AM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Legacy vs. Current (?) Firewire Drivers? Ah, good question (and I should have noted that), Win7 (Home Premium Edition). - Russ On 10/24/10 11:32 AM, Tim Ellisontelli...@itsco.com wrote: ___ 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/ ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] DICE(y) problem?
Is it supposed to work like that? If I called MS would they tell me complacently that it was a feature, not a bug? In a word Yes... that's exactly the way it's designed to work, unless you completely disable UAC. It's not nearly as ridiculous as it first might seem. Think of it this way: You're logged-in as administrator, and you have the privileges necessary to perform administrative activities. However, programs that you invoke by default do not necessarily have this privilege. If you want to USE your power, you need to Run as... If you find it annoying, you CAN turn it off. I initially turned this stuff off as a matter of course. But once I got more used to it (on Win7) I leave it enabled on my laptop... it's a pretty decent security blanket and doesn't really get in the way much in my experience. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] DICE(y)uac off ?how
Google is your friend – One description which looks pretty accurate to me: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/12/30/how-to-disable-and-turn-off-uac-in-windows-7/ Peter K1PGV From: paim [mailto:paimg0...@btinternet.com] Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 2:05 PM To: Peter G. Viscarola; Neal Campbell Cc: Eddie DeYoung; flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] DICE(y)uac off ?how is any one can tell me how to switch if of the administrator i think you call it UAC? E.P --- On Mon, 18/10/10, Neal Campbell nealk...@gmail.commailto:nealk...@gmail.com wrote: From: Neal Campbell nealk...@gmail.commailto:nealk...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Flexradio] DICE(y) problem? To: Peter G. Viscarola pete...@osr.commailto:pete...@osr.com Cc: Eddie DeYoung vk...@optusnet.com.aumailto:vk...@optusnet.com.au, flexradio@flex-radio.bizmailto:flexradio@flex-radio.biz flexradio@flex-radio.bizmailto:flexradio@flex-radio.biz Date: Monday, 18 October, 2010, 19:01 MS has certainly improved it over Vista which was unusable. I find VirtualStore more obnoxious so I turn that off when I install a new system (I actually turn off UAC also but thats secondary). The problem with turning off VirtualStore is that if you do not do it immediately after installing Win7, it can confuse the system greatly, so its a small window of applicability. 73 Neal Campbell Abroham Neal Software www.abrohamnealsoftware.comhttp://www.abrohamnealsoftware.com (540) 645 5394 On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:55 PM, Peter G. Viscarola pete...@osr.comhttp://uk.mc861.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=pete...@osr.comwrote: Is it supposed to work like that? If I called MS would they tell me complacently that it was a feature, not a bug? In a word Yes... that's exactly the way it's designed to work, unless you completely disable UAC. It's not nearly as ridiculous as it first might seem. Think of it this way: You're logged-in as administrator, and you have the privileges necessary to perform administrative activities. However, programs that you invoke by default do not necessarily have this privilege. If you want to USE your power, you need to Run as... If you find it annoying, you CAN turn it off. I initially turned this stuff off as a matter of course. But once I got more used to it (on Win7) I leave it enabled on my laptop... it's a pretty decent security blanket and doesn't really get in the way much in my experience. Peter K1PGV ___ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.bizhttp://uk.mc861.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=flexra...@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.bizhttp://uk.mc861.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=flexra...@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/
Re: [Flexradio] OT: Upgrading to Win7?
Is Microsoft pushing 64 bit? If so, why? Absolutely they are. And they should be! A hard limit of 4GB of physical memory, and 2GB of user-mode virtual address space, is really not enough for a lot of memory intensive applications today. As the emphasis shifts from devs writing tight, efficient, code to code that's easier and faster to develop (and more secure at the same time), many applications have gotten larger. Sometimes MUCH larger. Even on systems that do data acquisition and processing, the ability to use MUCH larger amounts of physical memory and to manipulate MUCH larger virtual address spaces makes it simple to do things that are very difficult in smaller address spaces. Larger address spaces can help reduce paging, which ALWAYS helps reduce latency (of every kind). Oh, yeah... and what Tim said, too: To help Intel sell more PCs and eventually force people to upgrade to newer Microsoft software. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] USB3 USB3 USB3
I have also read that even USB2 device will transfer data faster when connected to a USB3 port. It depends. USB High Speed (which is what you're referring to when you say USB2) devices will transfer data at the same data rate on a USB V3.0 Super Speed (XHCI) controller as they would on a USB 2.0 (EHCI) controller. For certain types of endpoints, and on some systems, some USB High Speed devices MIGHT have better overall throughput if they are on a USB V3.0 Super Speed controller. Nobody should be getting too very excited about USB 3.0 at this point. Windows 7 doesn't (natively) support USB 3.0, and there are few controllers or peripherals. The ones that DO exist generally (generally) do not perform very well. Probably the BIGGEST overall advantage of USB 3.0, aside from the speed increase, is how it's able to lower power consumption for devices on the bus. This will make USB 3.0 particularly desirable in laptops. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] USB vs Firewire
Neil, sure is funny how many times that dead horse gets resurrected. ;) Sigh... Even *I'VE* heard this debate enough times that I'm sick of it. When you design a product, you make decisions. The reason the 3000 and 5000 use 1394 is that Flex made that decision back when they were designing the radios. Over the EONS we've been having this discussion, Gerald has told us (in detail, repeatedly) that with the information they had at the time, and the requirements they were using, 1394 appeared to be the best choice at that time to the engineers who were responsible for the decision. Search the archives... you'll find all the details. We can -- and have -- debated ad infinitum whether USB 2.0 would work. It just doesn't matter. The decision's been made. It was NOT a bad decision then, and it has not proven to be a bad decision even now... several years later. For the record (the following is pure redundant trivia -- don't read it if you don't want to read the semi-technical ramblings of an engineer): even if the 3000 and 5000 could run on USB 2.0 it would present the same set of latency requirement as firewire Absolutely. There's nothing about USB that would lead us to believe that the types of latency issues that we see on 1394 would be any better on USB. The latency issues are really related to the drivers involved, not the underlying bus technology. The Windows USB stack (Host Controller Driver, etc) presents its own stunningly unique set of challenges, just like the Windows 1394 stack. With USB there are other common issues as well, like hubs... that can greatly influence the throughput on a bus. I realize you won't get 480 megabit/sec across a USB 2.0 interface, but many applications routinely get many tens of megabits/sec across them. Actually, applications routinely get tens of megaBYTES per second across USB. At least 200Mbps... maybe 300Mbps. IEEE 1394 (Firewire) is actually a better protocol than USB. The protocols are sufficiently different that you have to define better. Any X can be said to be better than any Y, if one defines better so that this is true. Firewire is more costly, less interoperable, and much more complex. This would mean that USB is better if better is defined based on those factors. It does support isochronous streaming transfers, something that Flex is just now trying to get going on USB. I USB inherently supports isochronous transfers. I have personally written Windows USB drivers that support isochronous endpoints. It's not difficult. The driver and the device firmware make ALL the difference. At THIS point, neither USB NOR 1394 would be the best choice, IMNSHO. The best choice would be Gigabit Ethernet. Oh, by the way: Even THEN you'll have to be concerned about DPCs and latency... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] More computer questions--mouse, trackball, etc ??
One beware on the trackballs. They are usually USB devices, and to speed up the response time, some manufacturers are calling the device extremely frequently, which can chew up the USB bandwidth, and generate a lot of commotion. Quite right. And it can really wreak havoc on a USB bus. Another thing that most people don't know is that mouse devices can be set to spontaneously generate position reports, even when they're not being moved. Most conventional mice turn this feature off... many specialty mice leave the feature on. So your mouse is sitting there on the desk, not moving, and generating constant position reports. Very helpful. Not! ONE nice thing is that most USB mice are USB low speed or USB Full Speed devices. This means you can isolate their traffic by carefully choosing the USB Root Hub port that you plug the device into (and NOT putting them on a hub that's shared with other devices). Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] sleepy computer and PSDR
Thanks to everyone for the replies and the nifty files but the quest continues to find a fully automated way of doing this. I'm confused: Windows can be set to sleep automatically when the system is idle. Isn't that what you want to do? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] sleepy computer and PSDR
Sounds like he only wants it to sleep when PowerSDR is not running, which would require PowerSDR to inhibit suspending to ram, or a third-party program to inhibit suspend when it sees PowerSDR active. Ah, yes. Quite correct. I see the problem now: If PowerSDR doesn’t indicate a user is present, then the system will indeed suspend while it’s running. I’d suggest this is a bug in PowerSDR… or at the VERY least warrants a “user story”… Trivial PowerSDR change – and I can’t see any downside (you’d have to set it only when PowerSDR was actually interacting with the radio, not just when it was running). P ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] FLEX-1500 Question
You will not be able to use win2k as your os as dot net isn't compatible with it, if I remember correctly. .Net V2.0 and earlier supports Win2K... .Net 3.0 and later will NOT work on Win2K. HTH, P ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] IRQ Sharing with Expresscard 1394 Adapter
The 27CC USB host controller has the USB drive on it. The 27CA (shared with the 1394a) has nothing connected to the ports. I assume that this will help a bit? Thanks, Neal. Neal and Tim are right: There's no way to know if this is going to be a problem without experimenting. The USB controller (which part of the Interrupt Control Hub -- ICH -- AKA Southbridge) that's used also depends on whether the device you connect is full speed or high speed. The xxxC controller is typically the high speed controller. You can confirm this by looking in device manager, the high speed controller will include Enhanced in its name. That same physical USB connector on your PC will be run by a different controller for low/full speed operation, and can be involved in connect/remove transactions. Try plugging in a low/full speed device (a keyboard or mouse) into that same connector, and check to see which controller it's using. You can see how devices are connected by selecting View... Devices By Connection in Device Manager. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Common Mode Chokes - Purchasing Ferrite
I've exchanged several e-mails with him on Common Mode Chokes, Matching Transformers, Line Isolators and antennas. He's a super serious DX'er and Contester who is also... Thanks Bill, and G0UUT. Wow... that's about the most interesting article on chokes that I've ever read. (In case you missed the cite the first time as I did: http://www.yccc.org/Articles/W1HIS/CommonModeChokesW1HIS2006Apr06.pdf ) Somehow, I feel like I need more ferrites now :-) Did someone say group buy? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Updated - My 64 Bit Windows 7 Adventure (DPCs explained... again)
The amount of DPC activity generated by any user-mode program is directly proportional to the amount of device I/O it generates. Network access, disk access, video access. If it's not causing device I/O, an application cannot be generating or affecting DPCs in the system. QUOTE I do not think you fully understand what a DPC actually is because a co-processor board would not solve the DPC problem... As an example, an application requests data from a hardware device like a network card or disk drive or sends data to a hardware device, like a video card. While that hardware device is fulfilling the request, the operating system waits momentarily for the hardware to complete it's task. A poorly written hardware driver will keep the operating system in this wait state for a long time until the task is completed and that is the reason for long duration DPCs. /QUOTE Your description is not correct. Not at all. People are already confused enough without having incorrect information. To correct your simplified example: As an example, an application requests data from a hardware device like a network card or disk drive or sends data to a hardware device, like a video card. While that request is in progress the only thing that waits is the user application that requested the operation (and, even at that, the wait is optional). The operating system and the driver definitely DO NOT wait. When the request is completed on the hardware, the hardware device generates an interrupt to indicate that something about its state has changed. Windows services this interrupt at VERY HIGH priority, temporarily interrupting almost anything else happening on the system at the time, and calls the Interrupt Service Routine of the driver responsible for the device. In its Interrupt Service Routine, the driver examines the hardware, determines the reason that the device interrupted, and -- if there is more work to do -- tells the operating system to call him (the driver) back at a LOWER priority level so he can finish attending to the device's needs without blocking everything else on the system. This call back is a Deferred Procedure Call (DPC). All requests for DPC callbacks are placed on a queue. Before returning to execute user applications the OS will remove one DPC request at a time and call the requesting back so the driver can complete the servicing of its hardware device. Within its DPC, the driver for the hardware device does whatever is necessary to service its device. This might mean moving data from a disk controller or a network card to a user data buffer and completing a request. But, it COULD (and most of the time WILL) mean completing SEVERAL such requests. The problem occurs when there are multiple devices, each with multiple requests, that generate interrupts within a short period of time. The DPC queue can grow long... and the amount of time that a given driver has to wait, from the time he requests his DPC callback from his ISR to when his DPC callback is actually run, depends on (a) the number of DPCs in the queue ahead of him, and (b) how much time each of those drivers spends in their DPC callbacks. A poorly written driver will spend an unacceptably long amount of time in its DPC, thus causing devices with DPC requests behind his in the queue to wait an unusually long time... thus causing excessive DPC latency for that waiting driver. To give you an idea of the timeframes we're talking about: The (currently) suggested maximum amount of time any driver should spend in either its ISR or DPC is 10us. In my experience, this is wishful thinking by Microsoft... there are LOTS of drivers that spend far more than 10us in their DPC callback routines -- There are Microsoft drivers that exceed this guideline and I know that I've written several drivers that routinely violate it as well. But, a well-written driver servicing a nicely designed piece of modern hardware should be able to get close to this guideline in most circumstances. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Updated - My 64 Bit Windows 7 Adventure (DPCs explained... again)
Yes, there is. But it's rather complicated. The tool to use is XPERF, which is separate install file (MSI) that's part of the Windows Performance Analysis toolkit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc825801.aspx What makes it so complicated is that the documentation on this tool is so poorly written. You CAN figure it out, however. There's an article pending (to be published online on my company's technical portal in the next week or so) that explains a but a bit how to use XPERF. I plan to edit this for the general audience and put it on my web site for folks to read. Unfortunately, that'll take a couple of weeks. Peter K1PGV From: Joe Camilli [mailto:joen7...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 12:44 PM To: Peter G. Viscarola Cc: Tim Ellison; Mark Ericksen; Flexradio Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Updated - My 64 Bit Windows 7 Adventure (DPCs explained... again) it there a method to track the down the offending driver or log the time each driver is taking? On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Peter G. Viscarola pete...@osr.commailto:pete...@osr.com wrote: The amount of DPC activity generated by any user-mode program is directly proportional to the amount of device I/O it generates. Network access, disk access, video access. If it's not causing device I/O, an application cannot be generating or affecting DPCs in the system. QUOTE I do not think you fully understand what a DPC actually is because a co-processor board would not solve the DPC problem... As an example, an application requests data from a hardware device like a network card or disk drive or sends data to a hardware device, like a video card. While that hardware device is fulfilling the request, the operating system waits momentarily for the hardware to complete it's task. A poorly written hardware driver will keep the operating system in this wait state for a long time until the task is completed and that is the reason for long duration DPCs. /QUOTE Your description is not correct. Not at all. People are already confused enough without having incorrect information. To correct your simplified example: As an example, an application requests data from a hardware device like a network card or disk drive or sends data to a hardware device, like a video card. While that request is in progress the only thing that waits is the user application that requested the operation (and, even at that, the wait is optional). The operating system and the driver definitely DO NOT wait. When the request is completed on the hardware, the hardware device generates an interrupt to indicate that something about its state has changed. Windows services this interrupt at VERY HIGH priority, temporarily interrupting almost anything else happening on the system at the time, and calls the Interrupt Service Routine of the driver responsible for the device. In its Interrupt Service Routine, the driver examines the hardware, determines the reason that the device interrupted, and -- if there is more work to do -- tells the operating system to call him (the driver) back at a LOWER priority level so he can finish attending to the device's needs without blocking everything else on the system. This call back is a Deferred Procedure Call (DPC). All requests for DPC callbacks are placed on a queue. Before returning to execute user applications the OS will remove one DPC request at a time and call the requesting back so the driver can complete the servicing of its hardware device. Within its DPC, the driver for the hardware device does whatever is necessary to service its device. This might mean moving data from a disk controller or a network card to a user data buffer and completing a request. But, it COULD (and most of the time WILL) mean completing SEVERAL such requests. The problem occurs when there are multiple devices, each with multiple requests, that generate interrupts within a short period of time. The DPC queue can grow long... and the amount of time that a given driver has to wait, from the time he requests his DPC callback from his ISR to when his DPC callback is actually run, depends on (a) the number of DPCs in the queue ahead of him, and (b) how much time each of those drivers spends in their DPC callbacks. A poorly written driver will spend an unacceptably long amount of time in its DPC, thus causing devices with DPC requests behind his in the queue to wait an unusually long time... thus causing excessive DPC latency for that waiting driver. To give you an idea of the timeframes we're talking about: The (currently) suggested maximum amount of time any driver should spend in either its ISR or DPC is 10us. In my experience, this is wishful thinking by Microsoft... there are LOTS of drivers that spend far more than 10us in their DPC callback routines -- There are Microsoft drivers that exceed this guideline and I know that I've written several drivers that routinely violate
Re: [Flexradio] No power out
QUOTE Could latent devices installed from other motherboards really do this if not active? It truly could be any number of problems that the fresh install solved besides driver hell but just wondered if anyone else had this experience. /QUOTE The key phrase is if not active. If the driver is truly not active, the answer is no... it cannot affect the running system. Typical PnP-enabled drivers are only loaded when a device for which they claim support is discovered. If there's no hardware involved, there are no interrupts. And if there are no interrupts (and no timers) then there can be no DPCs. But, even with no DPCs, a driver could STILL contribute to DPC latency. However, having lots of unused drivers hanging around in an installation CAN complicate matters and affect overall system performance. Most drivers provide a long list of devices they support and many end their list with a claim that they support a wide variety of generic hardware for compatibility reasons. So the driver starts out listing their support for a SPECIFIC vendor id and device id, a specific vendor system and subsystem, and a specific revision, and ends the list by saying oh, and in a pinch, I'll support any type of xyz device. When multiple drivers claim that they can support the same device, Windows determine which driver to select for a device using a complicated algorithm that is defined by business policy, not best technical match of driver to device. Many vendor-specific drivers are implemented as filter drivers which modify the function of a basic Microsoft-supplied driver. Such drivers might load over an entire class of device -- ready to support a vendor-specific model of that device should one be plugged-in (good examples here range from keyboards and mice to DVD drives). There are also drivers that are implemented as hybrids: Sort of PnP, sort of filter, and installed and activated by default. Finally, there are often drivers for lots of system resources that really, really want to be matched properly to the motherboard in use. These include drivers for BIOS-related devices (Do you have a volume up button on your keyboard? Ever wonder how it manages to (a) change the volume on your audio device, and (b) display a volume slider on your monitor? It's partly done in the BIOS -- that's a trivial example, but an easy one to understand). And there's a ton of BIOS-related stuff that can't be disabled without secret monkey magic known only to the mainboard vendor (for example, one mainboard I'm familiar with disables certain extensive BIOS extensions when there's no RAM placed in a specific slot on the mainboard). And we haven't even BEGUN to discuss weird things like dynamic BIOS patches (with stuff loaded via the registry), or other drivers that fall into the category of there's a bug but we can fix it in the driver. Getting the right set of drivers on your system for the best (or even correct) performance can be a major task. That why I don't even TRY to build my own system. I just order a machine from Dell or HP. OEMs control their BIOS and tend to do a reasonable job of systems integration. While any system you buy directly from an OEM will be plagued with lots of EXTRA goo, removing stuff is wy easier than trying to find all the right stuff in the first place. For computers designed to run PowerSDR, Neal provides this system integration service which is custom tailored to our needs and environment. It's all pretty complex stuff... and the more powerful the support chipsets (like the ICH) become the more tightly intertwined with the BIOS things become and the more critical and complicated system integration gets. Fun! Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] No power out
QUOTE As I was writing to someone else this weekend, while the strategy that Apple adopted of making their own hardware to go with their software means you pay more for the package (due to lack of competition), you do not get any of these wonderful problems as they control every piece of your system: hardware, bios, firmware, drivers and operating system. /QUOTE Ah, yes. Very much agreed. Price premium vendors with closed standards = a guaranteed experience. For years, computer companies thrived on this model and the products produced were usually of VERY high standard (think of systems from DEC and Apollo in the early years to Sun and Silicon Graphics later). The problem is that low prices, even at the cost of functionality and durability, seem to trump all in the consumer market. Price-based competition is now so prevalent that it's gotten extremely difficult to identify good quality computer or networking equipment. Price alone is not an indicator of quality, and clear engineering specifications are often lacking. Example: Ever try to find a REALLY good quality Gigabit Ethernet switch? Good luck... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] No power out
Intel PCI management driver Is that an Intel mainboard? The Intel Motherboards have some hellacious BIOS-based stuff that can lead to incredibly strange behavior. Unless you're using it in a big corporate environment where you might want this stuff, I usually recommend against Intel motherboards. (BTW... I can't even BEGIN to guess at what those other things are. Strange indeed.) Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Which OS?
QUOTE What you probably don't know is that when you run a regular (i.e., 32 bit) program on a 64 bit system, it runs in an emulator called WoW64 ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384249%28VS.85%29.aspx ) so you are adding one more layer of overhead, kinda like running in a virtual machine inside of Win7 /QUOTE The technical detail here is correct (when you run a 32-bit program on Windows-64, it runs under WoW64), but the conclusion is not. It's a relatively common myth. 32-bit programs actually run a bit FASTER on properly configured Windows-64 systems than they do on 32-bit systems. Try it. You'll see. There is no emulation required to run ordinary 32-bit programs on 64-bit Windows systems. When x64 support was designed, a key part of that design was to ensure that 32-bit programs could run directly on a CPU in 64-bit mode without any emulation or change to the 32-bit program. Thus WoW64 is not any sort of emulator at all, and certainly not like a virtual machine (in structure or in effect). It is, in fact, a very thin thunking layer that does nothing but change 32-bit program addresses to 64-bit addresses during system service calls. FYI I'm not guessing or relying on internet lore about any of this: I've been through just about every line of code in Wow-64... and there's not a lot of it. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Which OS?
QUOTE The first sentence in the Microsoft link I copied is WOW64 is the x86 emulator that allows 32-bit Windows-based applications to run seamlessly on 64-bit Windows. What am I missing? /QUOTE The technical details about 64-bit Windows on the x64, maybe? Remember, those articles are written by tech writers. They typically suffer from an enormous lack of technical precision. If you continue to read into the documentation that starts on the page you cited, you'll see that it applies to both x64 and Itanium systems. It's actually Itanium where the emulator comes into play. For x64, no emulation, just a think thunking layer (as well as some directory/registry redirection). A major design constraint for the AMD64 processor (AMD did the design, as you may know... Intel inherited the x64 technology from them due to cross-licensing) was to avoid any sort of instruction set emulation for 32-bit programs. Likewise, on Windows, the goal was to ensure native 32-bit programs ran at least as fast on x64 Windows systems as they did on 32-bit Windows systems. MSFT had been burned by the poor performance of 32-bit x86 programs on Itanium, and they were NOT eager to repeat the exercise. In fact, Cutler (the father of Windows NT and at the time the one responsible for the kernel architecture and implementation for Windows x64 support) was closely involved in the design of the x64 instruction set with AMD. I was lucky enough to be involved in the initial release of 64-bit Windows working with both Microsoft and AMD as a consultant. There's also an advantage to being able to read the Windows source code :-) Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] iPad and Flex
...plus the majority of it is in C# so that isn't an easy task. Believe it or not, you can port C# .Net applications to the iPhone using Mono (Google C# iPhone for more info). So SOME of PowerSDR would probably port. Even so, in the end you'd probably wind-up re-writing a great deal of the PowerSDR (to acquire the data, process it, the on-screen drawing, etc). And that's ASSUMING the iPad has enough horsepower for the job. I'm with Neal... Better off waiting for Deep Impact, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Virtual Serial Ports question
I downloaded version 2.2.2.0. When I try to install it, I get the message The 32-bit driver cannot run under 64-bit system. Continue?. I stopped at that point. Did you get this message? How did you get past it? The 32-bit and 64-bit executable images (the .SYS files) are different. You need to build or download a copy of the 64-bit driver. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Manual Notch
Well, a manual notch with user selectable or draggable width would be most useful. A manual notch filter would be exceptionally useful for digital modes, as well. It's something I have often wished for. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Fully Automated, robotic?
It's interesting to note that only 5 Xtreme category logs have been submitted out of 5500 total log submissions so far and 0.1% participation seems to indicate little interest in this category. Being at the top of 5 total entries doesn't thrill me but it would be easy to win a plaque since there's so little competition. Have people actually written fully automated robotic contest exchange software? If so, as a software engineer, I'd love to see it and see how it's done. Even though contest exchanges are pretty well circumscribed, I think it would STILL be difficult to automate the exchange with a high degree of reliability, given QRM/QRN, the variability in callsign signatures, requests for retransmits, etc. It's an interesting natural language parsing problem, which I admit is not my field of expertise any more than signal processing. But interesting nonetheless, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] arcane video cable question...
un-used at present.. this is a 'digital' video cable? (how many fingers am I holding up? Sorry...) The most arcane video cable *I* know of, at last as of today, is DisplayPort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Flexradio] In Praise of VSP Manager (was RE: SDR-1000 cat control to MixW)
I recently switched to VSP manager (for use with my SDR-1000) from vComm. VSP Manager works perfectly and is a great asset to the amateur radio community. We owe a debt of gratitude to K5FR for writing this program and procuring the OEM license from Eltima. Really good stuff. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Digital Trunking SDR
The first challenge would be a receiver capable of reception of frequencies from 100 MHz to over 900 MHz. Your next challenge would be decoding the Trunked Radio System control channel. P25 CAI is pretty well documented, and there's some well-known open source software (albeit very old) that handles Motorola's proprietary control channel format. IIRC, there's some similar reference software for EDACS. The advantages of using SDR techniques would be that you could (at least conceptually) receive and decode multiple streams of data simultaneously, such as the control channel and one or more voice channels. Your third -- and perhaps insurmountable -- challenge for any system using P25 audio (which can be used on either Moto or P25 type systems) would be decoding the audio. P25 audio is encoded in IMBE which is proprietary to a single vendor (DVSI). You'd have to license the algorithm from them, and -- at least in the past -- they have shown less than zero interest in cooperating with the amateur radio community. FYI, their commodity AMBE decoder chip (available at a very reasonable price) does NOT provide P25-compatible IMBE decoding, so that wouldn't be a way forward. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] WSPR ver. 2.0 released, improved set-up with PowerSDR now
WSPR is now much easier set up for use with PowerSDR, as it now includes direct PTT via CAT with PowerSDR, and also the audio set up now recognizes the VAC cables assignments. I realize this is the WSPR support list, but... Your post intrigued me enough to get me to download and try it today. It seems to have trouble with my virtual com ports... I'm using N8VB's vCOM, which has never given me a bit of trouble (I use it with MixW and HRD regularly). Can you tell me what you're using for com port control, and/or if you know if N8VB's vCOM doesn't work with WSPR for some reason? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Flex settings for great AM ?
time for me was about 1960 , so any advice would be welcome on setting , how well it works etc . The SDR/FlexRadio seems to be pretty well known in AM circles as being very good -- I spent some time for the first time in my life on AM last weekend using my SDR-1000, and on my very first try got very good audio reports. This from a group of folks with all sorts of expensive microphones (one guy had a Neumann TLM 103, for example) and long complicated processor chains of EQs and such. A couple of things that were PARTICULARLY nice were the result of being able to SEE the other folks signals: (a) Seeing them made it was very easy to center-up on them, (b) Seeing them allowed me to know how wide each person had their bandwidth set -- THAT was an education in itself. So, if a recommendation from a totally inexperienced AM'er is of any use... there you have it. I really enjoyed AM... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] USB to Serial Converter Question
Lack of 32-bit driver support is THE major problem with running a 64-bit Windows system, and it's the reason I don't run my personal systems at home in 64-bit mode. The situation is much better than it was -- thanks to Microsoft's requirement that any driver that's Logo'ed for Vista or Win7 have both 32-bit and 64-bit variants. But it's still a problem for a variety of devices, especially older devices and devices created by small vendors. rant What's so very annoying about this is that: (a) making your drivers support 64-bit Windows is not either difficult or time consuming (except for a VERY small subset of drivers that use x87 floating point instructions in kernel mode), and (b) the OEMs/IHVs have had MORE THAN SIX YEARS to work on 64-bit drivers for their devices. Any vendor that doesn't have 64-bit drivers doesn't have them because they don't want to. Many vendors are using the 64-bit requirement as an excuse to not support older devices, thereby reducing software support costs. I suspect you'll see Windows desktop OSes in the near future be 64-bit only. Windows Server already dropped support for 32-bit (as of WS2008R2). Might as well get ready... /rant Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] 5000A Freeze
I have 3 rules about MS Update which have served me well over the years: ... 3. Never accept hardware driver updates, ever ever ever from Microsoft. They are usually old because they are only the ones that the vendor has gone thru the MS certification process. Get hardware updates from your vendor not microsoft. You do this for Flex and you should for everyone else! VERY good advice. In fact, MY rule is to never accept driver updates AT ALL unless you have a specific reason to. Unlike ordinary Windows updates, driver updates are often to support newer hardware revs, to fix problems you'll never see, or for the convenience of the vendor. When it comes to your drivers, my advice is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you HAVE to fix it, do it with drivers from the vendor's site (as Neal suggested). Finally, note that some vendors will offer multiple driver versions for download: A WHQL certified version (Windows Hardware Quality Labs tested and approved), and the latest update version that's not yet WHQL certified. Always use the latest update regardless of WHQL certification. The certification has (demonstrably) nothing at all to do with driver quality, and everything to do with adherence to Microsoft policies and procedures. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Problem with 1.18.3 and VAC
or maybe some odd issue with VAC The ONLY thing I can think of, that's actually caused ME problems in the past, is (depending on how it's configured) VAC can be sensitive to the order in which programs using it are started. If a cable supports a range of throughputs, the first program that connects to the cable establishes the sampling frequency. I dunno if that even COULD be a problem in your case, but I know I've had problems with MixW and the like unless I start the programs using the VAC in the correct order. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] FlexRadio SDR-1000, 1500 and 3000.
So generally is there really a 4-500 dollar difference between the two? Tim and Lee have given you one perspective. Let me TRY to provide another. I'd say it depends on what you want to achieve, what you consider $500 worth of difference, your experience with computers, and your approach to the radio. I'm still running an SDR-1000 and I just love it. I haven't seen anything that's sufficiently compelling to make me want to upgrade to a 3K or 5K. The biggest problem, in my own operating, with the SDR-1000 is the frequency drift that Tim noted. As a digital-mode operator, this made me INSANE... UNTIL I got a real TXCO and installed it in the radio. Simple mod, with tremendous results. Now? Rock solid frequency to the hz. Tim and Lee are also 100% correct that the SDR-1000 takes a lot more fiddling around than the current generation of radios. If you're less of a computer guy, and more of a radio guy, you might find this fiddling annoying. OTOH, if you're like me and comfortable with computers and not in a rush to try the latest software... I tend to set my radio up and only upgrade versions maybe twice a year... the fiddling is kept to a minimum and things tend to stay working well. The SDR-1000 uses the same software as the new Flex radios, so from a usage perspective (features, controls, etc) they're identical (not counting the optional second receiver in the 5K). So, while the new Flex radios are undoubtedly superior (better build quality, more integrated, more frequency stability, easier setup and use) the older SDR-1000 is a real value. And if you're looking to get your feet wet in SDR, see what the excitement is about, and don't mind tweaking this and that (a bit like assembling a kit radio)... the SDR-1000 could be an inexpensive way to do it! And heck... after a few months you could always sell the SDR-1000 and buy a 3K :-) Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] VAC409 installation
VAC does not have signed 64-bit drivers and probably never will. I have discussed this with the developers on more than one occasion. Why won't he just get a Class 3 Code Signing certificate from GlobalSign and SIGN the darn thing?? That would sure save a lot of people a lot of trouble, and cost him about $220. Telling people to turn off code signing or put the system in test signing mode is really not any sort of solution. Who signs the Flex 1394 drivers? Maybe Flex can offer to sign 64-bit drivers that are commonly used with Flex radios as a service to the community?? The process takes less than 30 seconds... you just need the right certs. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Some initial comments - part 3 or so....
I think there have been some very good points raised in this discussion. I hear VA3MVW saying If Flex wants this radio to be successful with the mainstream community, there's plenty of work to be done to make it more plug and play. I hear W9OY saying It isn't that bad... there are plenty of proven methods to get the radio working without the user having to be a genius. It seems to me that both are right. It IS about business models. If Flex were a big company or a startup with a big chunk of venture capital, they could AFFORD to build a product with a much smoother end-to-end user experience. The fact of the matter is that Flex is a small business that manages to produce a pretty cool set of products at a reasonable price. Everything about the Flex experience can be fixed by applying the appropriate manpower and expertise: Driver issues, system qualification, GUI design, more advanced DSP features. The issue is WHO PAYs for these things? If they charged $50K for a radio, they could afford to give you a computer and come to your house to set everything up for you. Don't laugh... there are multiple vendors in the consumer audio world that do just this when you buy a pair of their speakers at that price. Given that Flex isn't a big company with tons of money to invest, and that they don't want to charge exorbitant prices for their gear, creating a more seamless user experience for their products is going to take time. Do I get frustrated about this from time to time? Yes. Especially so when the issues happen to touch my particular area of expertise (devices and drivers). I can't understand why they just don't fix this because *I* know how to fix the problem. Of course, there's no chance that Flex could afford to pay for even ONE week of my time, never mind the time that would be required to fix the problems I carp about. So, it's a balancing act. Given unlimited resources and the fullness of time could Flex do better on many things? Sure. But is it cool that they seem to be surviving in this economy and steadily evolving their product line, all the while producing radios that ordinary people can afford? Definitely. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] How accurate is the SWR meter in PSDR?
So the question is which do I believe? I don't know anything at all about how PSDR computes SWR. And I suppose it IS possible that it and the LP-100 are measuring different things or at different places or something. But I *do* know about the LP-100, and it's a seriously fine piece of equipment. My LP-100 has earned my trust many times over. I would be *very* surprised to find out the LP-100 was giving you incorrect readings, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Special computer
After much head-scratching, somebody dares to open up the case and finds that some component is different from the one in mine (the manufacturer found a similar chip that was 5 cents cheaper, and most people will never know the difference). Absolutely correct. Or, maybe the OEM just installed a different version of ONE of the drivers. That's all it'll take to send your DPC latency soaring through the roof... a single driver update. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] [SPAM] Re: Looking for PowerSDR Friendly Anti-virussoftware
I can honestly say that NOD32 doesn't seem to affect my shack computer so its worth a try. Here's another vote for Eset's NOD32: We do a lot of file system and file system filter interoperability testing, and NOD32 doesn't seem to cause the trouble that many of the most popular packages do. It's pretty well regarded in the technical community. I can also recommend BitDefender from personal experience, which is what I happen to be running on my x64 system, though I have NOT tried this with PowerSDR the disk I/O does not seem to be high. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Windows 7...worth the trouble?
Anyone running a 64 bit version of any Windows care to comment on any benefits of running 64 bit OS ver 32 bit, besides being able to break the 3 GB memory limit of 32 bit Windows. Benefit: The 64-bit versions of Windows are slightly faster than the 32-bit versions, even running 32-bit applications. I've been running 64-bit Windows Server 2003 (which is identical to Windows XP 64-bit) on my desktop at work from the day it went RTM, and the OS has been rock solid. Problems: In my experience, a small number of applications SOMEtimes act strangely on 64-bit Windows, and I've never known why. The availability of drivers for older hardware can be a problem. The availability of ANY drivers for 64-bit Windows USED to be a problem, but since the release of Vista all drivers for hardware that receives the Designed For Windows logo *must* be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Roofing filters, preselectors, oh my!
Much of the hardware in the flex operates under the I2C protocol. Critical stuff under the control of an I2C bus? That surprises me. I've always found the I2C bus (well, actually, almost always it's an SMBBus) inside computers to VERY noisy and prone to mangled packets. I've often seen multiple retries on the bus to get a single packet through. That's why inside a computer enclosure I22/SMBus is typically limited to non-critical stuff like temperature, fan, and battery sensors/controls. Do you know how they handle this? What speed do they run the I2C bus at? Are the internal cables they run twisted and shielded? Or is the I2C bus significantly less noise prone than the SMBus (they are essentially the same bus, modulo a few details such as slightly different logic levels -- the same 2-wire devices will work on either). Curious... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Book?
Huh. This is part of what I teach my students when studying wireless technology. You really think there is a market? More importantly, do you think anyone will bother to sit down and read it? At least with my students I can threaten tattle to their parents to get them to do the reading. ;-) If the book were written in the same style, and started at the same level as your post, I'd bet lots of people would read it. I know I would. In terms of is there a market -- I'm sure there would be one, but the question is how large? The amateur radio community is relatively small. I bet the ARRL could tell you the number of copies their books sell. Based on my own experience as an author in a narrow niche in the computer software field, I'd guess your book would sell no less than 10K copies over a couple of years. The nice things about publishing today is that many printing houses can print on demand small runs of a good quality soft-cover book very reasonably. Gone are the days when you needed to do a press-run of 10K copies and then stockpile them. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] I wish PowerSDR tuning/display worked like this...
EXCELLENT video description of the issue, ke5akl! As a (mostly) digital mode op, I have the exact same issue... On 20, I'd like to watch the area from about 14069 and up on the panadapter. For ME, having a more fully featured implementation of the sub-receiver on VFO-B would be a sufficient solution to this issue. For example, I've never understood why the sub-receiver can't have a different filter bandwidth than the main receiver. This would make a BIG difference in digital mode operation for DX working split (keeping the DX in a narrow filter, and the area of the band where the DX is listening in a WIDE filter so you can see it on your digital mode program's waterfall). I prototyped a code-change for this (it was VERY easy to implement) and submitted a feature request for this over 2 years ago (#921). Never heard a word on it... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] WTB: Mint Flex 5000A
This is reaching the point of spam. Should we ask to have this guy ... Juan, K4LCd is a very nice retired gentleman in his 70s and a serious ... I know a $3856 package was offered for 25% offand was turned ... This reflector is primarily for people that own a Flex Radio, or of Mods... Take a position on this PLEASE? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Venting about VAC 4 with SDR 1.18.1 (but I know Iam somehow the problem)
I realized that he was just railing against cheap laptops. Folks should probably keep in mind that sweeping generalizations can be good guides, but are generally inaccurate in some detail. We've had BO, and now here's PO (Peter's Opinion), based on what I've learned from 15 years of working on the Windows OS, and designing drivers and devices with OEMs: 1) ANY commodity type system -- be it laptop or desktop -- can be subject to variability in design. Motherboard versions, BIOS versions, add-in cards, can all change during the life of a system label. 2) MOST laptops are not designed for performance. No brand-name laptops use commodity motherboards (laptop motherboards are almost always custom designed), but the engineering challenges of building the typical laptop include finding ultra-small devices, stretching a very tight power budget as far as it will go, not adding to cooling problems, and hitting a particular price point. Not that creating a device that responds well for real-time processing was not in that list. Neither was performance. I've seen many, many SUPER performing laptops -- True desktop replacements. They've all been big, they got really hot, and the power brick was usually larger than a real brick and much heavier. Seriously. 3) There are both laptop and desktop systems that will work well for our real-time processing needs. 4) It's trial-and-error knowing which systems will work. There's no way to look at a machine, or its specifications, and know it will work... unless you've already tried an IDENTICAL system. Changing just ONE peripheral -- or one driver version -- can dramatically change the real-time performance characteristics of a Windows system. A poorly engineered system will never perform well for real-time processing, but a well engineered system may not perform well depending on the drivers on the system. For example, a system might get excellent disk or network throughput, but at the cost of longer DPCs which we would find intolerable for use with a Flex. That's the only wisdom that I have to impart: There's no way to know in advance by looking at a system, it's packaging, or its components and know whether it'll work well for our uses. The motherboard, the peripherals, and the software -- right down to the driver version -- all matter. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] HRD V 5
There is still the few seconds delay when PTT goes via CAT control. No delay when PTT control goes via second virtual Com port. So, for HRD, I continue using CAT except for PTT. There is no such I know Simon said he'd look into this, but just to add an additional confirmation: I've seen this delay problem with DM780 (to my SDR-1000) for quite a long time. If it's any help, the delay seems variable. I'm going to try V5 right now to see if I can repro what I've seen previously on the newest release. Thanks to Simon for looking into this. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Flexradio] Happy Surprises DO Happen -- V1.18.1 is GREAT
I'm an almost 100% digital mode operator. I started using my SDR-1000 back when PowerSDR 1.8.0 had just been released. Subsequent releases of PowerSDR always turned-up a different set of clicks, pops and artifacts... and sent me back to basically Square One setting VAC parameters, buffer sizes, etc. It was a great radio, but upgrading version of PowerSDR wasn't much fun, to be honest. So, I've always been slow to upgrade... and for the longest time was on PowerSDR 1.10.4 Over the weekend, I decided to try PowerSDR V1.18.1 - After just a LITTLE tweaking I had things set and working on my system. No pops, no clicks, ultra-low IMD. And I found PowerSDR V1.18.1 to be much improved (even in terms of usability) than before. SO much more so, I took the day off today to play radio... something I haven't done in ages. I just wanted to say to the Flex and PowerSDR teams... WELL DONE. I found the change between V1.10.4 and V1.18.1 nothing short of dramatic, and very FB. The radio really does... keep getting better. Even the SDR-1000. And even for a very demanding Digital Mode operator. Just thought you'd like to know, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Flexradio] Fine Tuning the DDS Offset
In older versions of PowerSDR I would correct the clock offset (of my SDR-1000) using the Phase display as described in the KB article... Tune in WWV and adjust the clock offset carefully until the dot on the phase display moved very slowly in a circle or stopped entirely. In this latest version of PowerSDR, I notice the phase display now shows a line instead of a dot... mine's slanted from about 11 to 5 on the clock. Is there a different procedure now to do the manual DDS offset correction? Thanks, Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] Fine Tuning the DDS Offset
Change to DSB mode rather than SAM or AM http://kc.flex-radio.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50175.aspx Check your mode setting, you are probably in SAM. Both spot on... Duh! Thanks... Peter K1PGV ___ 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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Flexradio] PowerSDR and Digital Modes Overview (was Fldigi)
First, PowerSDR is the radio itself. Your Flex 5000 or Flex 3000 plus your computer running PowerSDR *IS* the radio. That was a darn good introductory overview that Brian posted... Perhaps it can be archived as a KB article for those with similar questions in future? Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] All using SVN 3166 or higher
Reflexively, I disliked the idea of quashing the SVN talk on this list. But as I started to think about it more, it began to make sense: How many people REALLY want to watch the sausage being made? Even open source loving Linux users don't all want to belong to the linux-kernel list. Some people just want to USE the stuff. And I'm sure moving the development talk off to a separate list also makes good business sense for Flex. I can see how folks who are used to radios that get built once and never updated could find all the SVN talk and mentions of bug fixes off putting. But while I think it's sensible to move the development/beta testing talk to another mailing list, I think it would be a very bad idea to make the membership to this list closed. One of the great advantages of PowerSDR is the fact that the users CAN (and DO) keep the developers closely attuned to their needs. To continue the (weak) analogy above, anyone who wants to CAN join the linux-kernel mailing list and (if so inclined and in possession of an asbestos suit) argue with the big dogs about what needs done in the next revision of the kernel. So... sure. Move the dev talk to another list. That'd be sensible. But restrict who can join? I think that'd be a darn shame. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Windows XP Pro
Use the latest service pack. Lots of fixes, no disadvantages of which I am aware. Peter K1PGV -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex- radio.biz] On Behalf Of Bruce Mills - KL7JDR Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:31 PM To: FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz Cc: kl7...@alaska.net Subject: [Flexradio] Windows XP Pro Going to install Windows XP Pro on a dedicated partition just for the Flex PowerSDR. Radio only ! no internet , networking , or any other programs. Just Pretty Betty. Which is better ? no service pack , SP1 , SP2 , SP3 . 73's , Bruce KL7JDR Bruce W. Mills P.O. Box 1500 31490 Echo Lake Road Soldotna , Alaska 99669 (907)262-4373 kl7...@alaska.net ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] 5000A es XP Home
There's no advantage to XP Home over XP Pro... but there are some very disadvantages that I've found very annoying, mostly in the networking area (as Neal alluded to). Most notable are: a) Directory and file security is hidden from user control -- The Permissions tab is only present in Safe mode. b) You cannot access an XP Home system remotely using RDP (Windows Remote Desktop). c) You cannot remotely access the contents of the Program Files folder, or various other folders. Aside from policy issues like these, it's the same operating system. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] vhf/uhf digital modes and repeater operation
I think we hold our nose and realize we are going to be interoperable with P25 services of first responders Unfortunately, D-Star is not compatible or interoperable with P25. The AMBE codec that is used for D-Star (almost always the AMBE-2020) will not decode P25 IMBE encoded transmissions. Sadly, I confirmed this (a) directly with DVSI, (b) by experiments done by a colleague who spent time with one of the plug-in D-Star decoders for the specific purpose of attempting P25 interoperability. It might be possible to have a codec plug in board that did both AMBE and IMBE, but the chip that's used in the inexpensive commodity AMBE decoder for D-Star does not do this. I do know that DVSI has a board-level product that will do P25 decoding, the VC-55-PR. Unfortunately, it's just a bit over $900 per board in small quantities. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Is it worth the trouble??
Is it worth the trouble? W... I'm still running an SDR-1000. For ME, the Flex SDR has changed my whole outlook on operating a radio -- whether it's casual contesting, casual DXing, or just tuning around the band to see what's happening, to the point where I can barely stand to operate something without a pan-adapter. Sure, the UI is clunky and there are a list of things that I would fix if I were Flex King for a Day. But, for me, the Flex SDR is a completely mind altering experience. In my opinion, it's so superior to other things out there that there's no question that I'd buy it again. Best radio I ever bought. So, yes, I'd definitely buy it again, and I'd recommend anyone else buy one in a second. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Audio Drop-out Latency
To all: I just checked the device manager and found 16 USB controllers. Eight of these were USB root hubs. I disabled 4 of these and DLC value went from 950 microseconds to 30 microseconds. For those with drop out problems, I would start at the USB folder in your device manager and see how many you can live with. Dale KC2PZ Neal's advice to look at the IRQ sharing carefully is good advice. In terms of USB: The USB controller story is confusing, and I'd suggest folks not go there by default. Here's why you see so many USB controllers on a system: Remember that we have USB V2.0 (supporting High Speed) that's backwards compatible to USB V1.0 and V1.1 (supporting Low Speed and Full Speed). They way they get this backwards compatibility is pretty strange. USB V2 controllers are EHCI controllers -- You'll see them listed as USB2 Enhanced Host Controller in device manager. Every EHCI controller has built into it 4 (count em) UHCI or OHCI controllers. These controllers handle backwards compatibility (low-speed and full-speed devices), and appear to Windows as entirely separate devices. Because, they ARE (effectively) entirely separate devices. In addition, each of these controllers has an associated Root Hub. That's what provides the on-board USB sockets to plug into. So, with just one USB V2.0 controller you get: 1 USB V2.0 High Speed controller (EHCI) 4 USB Low Speed / Full Speed controllers (OHCI or UHCI) 5 Root Hubs Disable the EHCI controller, and you won't have any more support for High Speed. Disable one of the root hubs, the built-in USB ports on your machine will stop working. The moral of the story: Feel free to disable stuff. Now at least I hope you have a better idea of what you're disabling. Just wait until we have USB V3.0 (USB Super Speed) to deal with. Oh, that'll be a treat. Peter OSR ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] [SPAM] Frequency change by slidingacrosspanadapter
side. That is a LOT of data traversing the wire between the radio hardware and your computer arriving in the correct sequence in near real-time. When the FLEX-5000 was in the engineering/development stage, a wide variety of data bus technologies where evaluated and only Firewire was able to meet all of the stringent requirements. I think we've debated this one or twice before. Let's do the math! 192K samples per second * 24 bits per sample = 4.7Mbps 12 channels * 4.7Mbps = 56.4Mbps (I admit that I don't understand how we get 12 channels... but that's what Tim said, so let's go with it) Is my math wrong? If not, the max output of an SDR-5000 be WELL within the range of 100Mb Ethernet. For reference: I regularly observe sustained transfers in excess of 70Mbps over my 100Mbps Ethernet between systems, using a commodity DLink switch from Best Buy. And, for fun, note that on USB V2 320Mbps of actual bulk data throughput is routinely observed. This is actual data rate, and does not include USB SOF and other overheads. Ethernet was NEVER designed to be a multi-channel anything since it is CDMA so those inherent limitations have to be reliably over come before it can be a viable replacement technology. I'm not sure what this means. 1394 doesn't send multiple channels of data simultaneously (it interleaves transfers, just like Ethernet). But this is a specious argument in any case, because we're sending discrete digital data, and sending such data at a sufficiently high rate is equivalent to being continuous. And interleaving multiple packets of this discrete data, given sufficient capacity, is exactly equivalent to multi-channel capability. When the FLEX-5000 was in the engineering/development stage, a wide variety of data bus technologies where evaluated and only Firewire was able to meet all of the stringent requirements. I don't know what the additional factors might have been, but it is simply not correct to state that 1394 is the only medium that can handle this data rate. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Found the FLEX-3000 latency problem
The videocard (NVIDIA serie 9000) and firewire share the same IRQ !!! That's truly hideous. Is this an on-board FireWire controller? If so, disable it and get a plug-in card. If the firewire controller is on a plug-in card, move the FireWire controller to another slot (typically, just one slot over). Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] Feedback wanted on new PC idea
Didn't see an operating system in the list, are you thinking of the Windows 7 release candidate until March? Careful: If you run the Win7 Release Candidate build, you will almost certainly have to do a complete re-install when the released product comes out. That is, it would be unusual to be able to upgrade from Win7RC to Win7 Gold (without manually editing the installation files). And, note that there's no upgrade from XP to Win7 either. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
Re: [Flexradio] New architecture SVN Alpha code?
Geez, guys... Why is it that any time anybody raises just a little negative criticism they get jumped on? Give Barry a break. Barry, and all of us, bought a radio an integral part of which is the software that runs on a host PC. That software is pretty good, but it's far from perfect. I think we all know that. And, face it: We HAVE been told The New Architecture is coming for YEARs now. And Bob's answer wasn't exactly the most friendly. What we're all seeing here is a classic manifestation of how the open, volunteer written, software world works when it produces software that's a key part of paid product. Customers have opinions, expectations, and wants. Devs who don't get a pay check tend to please themselves and have little incentive to repeatedly answer the same customer criticism with patience or grace. Flex and PowerSDR aren't unique in this situation... if you'd like to see exactly the same situation in action, check out the Squeezebox audio device. But... c'mon. Just cuz a guy takes umbrage at receiving a flippant reply doesn't mean he should have his head handed to him. He DID buy the radio, and IS entitled to his views. Peter K1PGV ___ 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/
