Re: [Flexradio] SPAM-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem
This 5K is operating on a custom built workstation according to the recommendations published in the KB to the tune of well over $1K without displays. It is used only for running the 5K. It is a clean XP Pro install from a virgin Microsoft CD-ROM and was connected to the Internet only long enough to register the OS and download the required service packs (including .NET and the like). It was disconnected from the home network after that time and has not seen the light (or darkness) of the web since then. All software installs and updates are downloaded from this computer and hand carried to the radio computer. Besides the firmware/driver/PSDR software, the only other software loaded is com0com, registered version of VAC, paid version of CW skimmer, and my logging program LOGic 8. Oh, and Adobe Acrobat Reader so I can RTFM. Machines can't get much cleaner than this one. Setup values are the default modified by the values presented in the Expert Settings published in the database. Settings in VAC and CW Skimmer are per the KB articles as well. Frank N1UW -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Brian Lloyd Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 10:22 AM To: Lee A Crocker Cc: Flexradio Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: [Flexradio] CW Transmit Problem On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:49 AM, Lee A Crocker lee_croc...@yahoo.com wrote: Sounds to me like you have some external program that is taking over the interrupt every 2 seconds long enough to hose PSDR or something like that Probably windows phoning home to the mother ship or some seti calc program or something like that Try some of the KC info about optimizing windows and shutting down all the extra cra... err enhancements I watch these same questions/comments/problems appear here over and over. You know Lee, this just keeps pointing back to the same advice -- don't run anything else on the machine that runs your radio. If it's not there it can't screw things up. This goes for firewalls, antivirus, web browsing, email, etc., etc. If you are worried about your machine getting hacked, unplug its network connection. Plug it in only when you are downloading new PowerSDR bits, windows updates, and updating your logbook at LoTW or eQSL. When done, unplug again. Here is the basic formula for running PowerSDR happily-ever-after: 1. Install WindowsXP; 2. Install only the programs necessary to run the radio, e.g. Flex driver, PowerSDR, VAC, com0com, and your favorite logging/rig-control/digital mode program. 3. Turn off all the unnecessary functions of windows. -- 73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL ___ 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 n...@gokarns.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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] SPAM-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem
sounds like a very nice system How many things share the firewire interupt? I ran into trouble twice. Once when I was using a laptop I had a PC card that had both firewire and USB and that was a total disaster as USB firewire and PCcard were trying to own the same interupt. The second time was when I was using a wikey USB keyer and a serial USB port that I was using to key PSDR All the traffic on the USB line would scramble the dits. So even if it is a clean system there are still sequencing kind of things that can hose it up 73 ___ 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-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem
Checking the interrupts on the motherboard is one of the several leads I hope to get to tonight. What is interesting about this is that the radio/computer combination seems to work flawlessly on SSB and I do not see or hear any signs of audio drop-outs on receive, even on AM signals where you would think they would be very apparent. I know what the ticks sound like from early out-of-the-box trials with a laptop experience. Keep the suggestions coming, guys! Frank N1UW -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Lee A Crocker Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 4:41 PM To: Flexradio Subject: Re: [Flexradio] SPAM-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem sounds like a very nice system How many things share the firewire interupt? I ran into trouble twice. Once when I was using a laptop I had a PC card that had both firewire and USB and that was a total disaster as USB firewire and PCcard were trying to own the same interupt. The second time was when I was using a wikey USB keyer and a serial USB port that I was using to key PSDR All the traffic on the USB line would scramble the dits. So even if it is a clean system there are still sequencing kind of things that can hose it up 73 ___ 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 n...@gokarns.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/ Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Flexradio] SPAM-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem
Flex Dudes: All excellent comments, but those of us with little ones are hesitant to shut off services or processes as recommended by sites maintained by gamers. A list of recommended shut-offs from trusted Flexers would be most welcome. Frank N1UW P.S. If something blows up I won't come after you with my attorney...I don't even have one. -Original Message- From: flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz [mailto:flexradio-boun...@flex-radio.biz] On Behalf Of Brian Lloyd Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 8:00 PM To: Michael Walker (VA3MW) Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: [Flexradio] CW Transmit Problem On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Michael Walker (VA3MW) va...@portcredit.net wrote: Hi Brian I have a couple of concerns with this logic. The largest concern is that Windows should never be used to run anything in production or anything to do real time processing. It is just not designed that way from the ground up. No argument. But that doesn't matter. The basic fact is that PowerSDR runs on Windows so you have to run Windows. Period, end-of-report. That being said, we, as a group, need to come up with a list of required services. Those that need to be run when you are a single box, not connected to the internet and known to work. If there is such a list that is bullet proof and works, I would love to see it. Several people (including me) have posted lists of disabled services to strip down Windows XP to its minimum function. Start with one of the sites on the web that discuss windows services and which ones you can turn off. If you don't need it, turn it off. (It is absolutely amazing what is in there and running that you don't need.) Another list of services would be those that would be for a box that is internet connected, but behind a firewall (not run on the box) and that firewall would also do stateful packet inspection (like Astaro www.astaro.com). As a home user, you can get that for free. I prefer m0n0wall myself. It is a stateful firewall, an IPSEC tunnel termination box, a traffic shaper, a filtering bridge, DHCP server/forwarder, DNS server/forwarder, etc. It supports 802.1q VLAN tagging and will let you treat a given VLAN tag as an interface. It runs on any PC hardware and supports multiple interfaces. It is also free. It comes as a standalone bootable image so you don't even need to bother loading an OS on the target hardware. It will boot from CD, HD, or CF. You can very safely run without AV as long as you don't connect/browse. If you do, only to those few web sites you trust. Many Trojans are installed as scripts that come with the web page, and only packet inspection will reliably find them. Yup. Once we get a solution that is linux based (a real time OS), then I think you will see the ability to run much better on less hardware. Well, Linux is not a panacea either but it is certainly better than Windows. I would bet that the Mach kernel in Darwin is probably better but I think it will be a long, cold, lonely day in hell before someone chooses to use that as their preferred target OS for these kinds of things. Lastly, we are headed to the point where the only way this will run reliably is if you buy the box and rf deck from the vender and you are not allowed to modify it at all (sort of like every other HF rig). :) Well, not quite. One of the nice things about these radios is that, should the software demands increase, we can swap out the processing unit for one that has more processing power. I don't know of any other radio you can do that with. Still, it make a lot of sense to dedicate a processing unit to the radio. FWIW, so far I have successfully made every system I have tried work reliably with PowerSDR. That includes six or seven Mac hardware machines (Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, iMac), a custom AMD-based server box I built to run the 64-bit version of Solaris x86, and several little A-Open media-player machines (similar to Mac Mini) that have built-in Firewire. (I have one of these left if anyone wants it. It looks great sitting on top of the Flex 5000 and even has a matching blue-light-of-death power indicator.) But every one of the working systems was tweaked to run PowerSDR and do nothing else. -- 73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL ___ 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 n...@gokarns.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/ Message delivered to
Re: [Flexradio] SPAM-LOW: Re: CW Transmit Problem
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 6:21 PM, Frank Karnauskas N1UW n...@gokarns.com wrote: Flex Dudes: All excellent comments, but those of us with little ones are hesitant to shut off services or processes as recommended by sites maintained by gamers. Well, a PC users go, they are the ones who try to get the absolute most out of their systems. If if you want your car to go fast it does make sense to ask the guys who build race cars. A list of recommended shut-offs from trusted Flexers would be most welcome. I know I posted my list sometime back. I can make a new one. It just takes me awhile to dump it and then format it to send to the list. Oh, and I'm lazy. :-) If you are worried about what might happen if you are playing with your system: 1. take a snapshot of your system; 2. turn stuff off; 3. if your machine doesn't work, reboot into safe mode and restore the last system restore point. Regardless, I have been pretty agressive turning things off. One thing you can do is stop a service manually without disabling it. That way if you make your system stop running, you can just reboot and everything will be back the way it was. Frank N1UW P.S. If something blows up I won't come after you with my attorney...I don't even have one. I doubt anything is likely to blow up. I know I still have all my limbs. ;-) -- 73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL ___ 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
