I didn't spend any time at the Flex booth, although their signas
touted SmartSDR Version 3, so I expect they were also talking
about multiFlex.
While there may not be a lot of use for multiFlex in the normal
DX chaser, perhaps except for those stations that really don't
want US responses so transmit in the US phone band but listen in
the US CW band, there are some interesting uses for DXpeditions.
AA7JV was interested in running both CW and FT8 on 160M with one
amplifier and transmit antenna. (He said setting up two stations
was too much work, and you needed to be running both modes on
those "magic nights" when 160 was open.)
He described an approach using a Flex in his talk at the Topband
dinner and in his ""The RIB: Radio In a Box for DXpeditions" session.
The idea of RIB is to put the box in the rare DX with a
generator and antenna, and operate it from the boat off shore
via UHF based internet, just visiting the DX to set up, service
the generator, and tear down.
73 Bill AE6JV
On 4/15/19 at 3:01 PM, [email protected] (Barry Baines) wrote:
Out of curiosity. did Flex Radio Systems tout their new
SmartSDR v3,0.19 featuring “multiFlex” that allows two
operators to share one Flex-6xxx series transceiver (or one
operator use two devices such as a laptop with SmartSDR and a
Maestro connected to the same transceiver at the same time)?
Given the focus on DX and contesting at Visalia, I’m
wondering what the crowd reaction might have been to this newly
released capability?
I suspect that while this is a technical achievement,
non-contest users are being challenged to determine how exactly
multiFLEX works and what advantages it brings to their
operating experience. However, there appears to be significant
benefits to multi operator contest stations as well as single
operator two radio (SO2R) setups, reducing the number of
transceivers and associated control boxes/cabling while
allowing both two operations using the same transceiver to
share the same antenna.
I also suspect that what is driving Flex’s focus on the needs
of contest operations is that contest stations spend ‘real
money’ on equipment and software to enhance their competitive
advantage. It’ll be interesting to see whether the evolution
of technology by Flex using SDR will translate to tangible
benefits for the "rest of us” as well as whether other
equipment manufacturers respond to these technical enhancements.
73,
Barry, WD4ASW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz | Since the IBM Selectric, keyboards have gotten
408-356-8506 | steadily worse. Now we have touchscreen keyboards.
www.pwpconsult.com | Can we make something even worse?
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