Don't get me wrong.. I love my Flex ... it has put the fun back into radios...
My test was deliberate.. to see how newbie's would use it in a contest... The focus issue became a major headache for them.. I will take your advice about disabling keyboard shortcuts for the next contest. And I will look at the external VFO that keeps focus.. unlike that Griffin Knob that I own that does not. Ultimately there has to be a simple software solution that would allow you to keep focus on the logger and allow the mouse wheel to focus to only change frequencies. __________________________________________________________ Howard S. White Ph.D. P. Eng., VE3GFW/K6 ex-AE6SM KY6LA Website: www.ky6la.com "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" "Ham Antennas Save Lives - Katrina, 2003 & 2007 San Diego Fires, 911" -----Original Message----- From: Laurie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 2:20 PM To: Dr. Howard S. White; [email protected] Subject: RE: [FlexEdge] Field Day, Focus and Contest Skins? Howard, It all boils down to a learning curve. The Flex 5000 when run the first time in a contest gave me many headaches as well so these issues are not new. Thanks to kind people on this reflector I got my setup sorted out. First of all the keyboard shortcuts can be disabled in the setup menu, until that is done yes you will have all sorts of grief. The second point as I just seen someone else mentioned, dual monitors are a bonus, if not a darn big one helps. By simply having the above taken care of you will notice a vast improvement in operating procedures. May I say that it helped me achieve a claimed score in the 2010 WPX of 3.696M, 5th in Oceania and 1st in VK for the ABHP category. This I hope to improve on this year as I have added the external VFO from Beppe at Woodbox Radio. This enables you to leave the focus on N1MM or whatever logging programme and still use the VFO and programmed buttons. That's right, radio control without the logging programme losing focus. It has been used here in smaller contest and works great, until the software gurus can come up with some other way round the focus issue its your answer. So please give the radio a chance, it interfaces well with the logging programmes and once you have it sorted it becomes a mean piece of contesting equipment. I have enjoyed many contest 1st placing with this radio. 73 Laurie VK7ZE -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dr. Howard S. White Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 5:18 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FlexEdge] Field Day, Focus and Contest Skins? Ran the Flex 5000 for Field Day with 2 Flex Newbie's who were Very Experienced Contest Operators who regularly win major contests. The issue quickly became the fact that it was difficult to use the Flex in a contest environment because the operators had difficulty with the focus of the keyboard in search and pounce mode. This was not an issue when we held a frequency as we did not have to touch the radio. On several occasions, they would be typing into N1MM, then changing frequencies, forgetting to move the focus back to N1MM so PowerSDR abruptly changed the radio frequencies or bands because they typed on the wrong screen...and of course lost the contact.... It became highly frustrating in the heat of battle.. I had the mouse set so that by hovering over a program it would shift focus but that was not really good enough in the heat of the contest where the mouse needs to be hovering over PowerSDR but typing needs to be into the Contest logger. Bottom Line: They concluded that the Flex was not ready for "Prime Time" Contesting. I seem to recall some discussions on program focus on this reflector but it is impossible to search this reflector's archives.. A Few of Recommendations: 1. There really needs to be a Contest Skin which removes about 90% of the controls that you never use in the contest...they could be "set it and forget it" in the main form and hidden during contests..... You really only use frequency via mouse wheel, band, filters. 2. The Contest Skin needs to integrate a contest logging program such as N1MM or Writelog into the Skin so that you never have to switch programs...ideally the logger should show inside the skin. 3. In the alternative, remove the ability of the keyboard to interact with PowerSDR during contests and fix its focus onto the Contest Logger while fixing the focus of the mouse wheel on frequency changing. 4. Or in the alternative, use a second computer for the contest logger... really ugly solution... 5. There needs to be a detailed Knowledge Base Article on Focus for contesting. One other suggestion... move this reflector to a reflector such as Yahoo Groups which has a searchable archive...so you won't continually have people asking the same questions all the time. __________________________________________________________ Howard S. White Ph.D. P. Eng., VE3GFW/K6 ex-AE6SM KY6LA Website: www.ky6la.com<http://www.ky6la.com/> "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" "Ham Antennas Save Lives - Katrina, 2003 & 2007 San Diego Fires, 911" _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] 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 alpha and beta versions of the software. _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] 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 alpha and beta versions of the software.
