Don, USB is, in general, a real pain. I think it's unlikely that we would support FLEX-6000 audio over USB in the near term unless it comes virtually "for free." There are two things going on here:
1. Even if it were an easy thing to do (which I'm betting it is not), we would have to spend the time to qualify it and state how it works, how to do it, etc. This "productization" process requires our engineering resources. 2. The market size for a particular feature (let's call this a feature) determines how likely we are to please our customer base by implementing it. My suspicion is that a small percentage of our customers would find this useful. Internally we weigh the effort (#1 above) with customer's desire for the feature (#2). If it takes a small amount of resources and everyone wants it, we will says things like "oh, this is a no-brainer -- let's go do it." If it takes a lot of engineering resources and only a handful of customers want it, we're unlikely to do it unless there is a strategic reason to do so. Most things fall in the middle and we discuss what we think makes sense. Sometimes when someone suggests something, lots of other folks would say it's useful which is good information. But with fixed resources what's really important is not how much someone would like something -- it's if they would like something more than something else. Now all of this is based on FlexRadio's beliefs -- which might be right or wrong in both of these cases. For example, we might think something is hard, but it is really easy (or vice-versa). Or we might think that no one would use something, but a lot of people would. TNF was something we thought was 1) fairly easy and, 2) had moderate appeal. As it turns out, it was harder than we thought (all of the edge cases in GUI design combined with the database features to make it really useful hadn't been thought of at the start of the project). Also, it has broader appeal than we thought. The interest in the capability and what we are hearing people do with it far exceeds our expectations. So, in the end we are glad we did it but this is not always the case. When I worked with/for prior software companies (Digital in particular) users groups would assist by filling in the gaps that engineers naturally have living away from the "real world." While some of our engineers are also radio operators and we certainly give a strong preference to new-hires that have RF experience and amateur operating experience in particular, all of us could benefit from a taste of the real world. This is one of the reasons we insist all our engineers go to events like Hamvention. You may have noticed that we pack our booth at Dayton with employees and one of the reasons is that we know how valuable it is for our engineers to understand from customers what they are doing or what they want to do with our products. But back on point, at Digital we had a users group called DECUS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECUS). The Wikipedia page doesn't do justice to what DECUS was all about. Participants that used specific components of DEC's technology would come together with the engineers and marketers of that product and discuss where the product was going, how users were using it, their successes and frustrations, etc. Users and Digital employees alike gave presentations and learning went all around. Engineers took back what they had learned energized with the knowledge that their work has meaning and with ideas for new features or products. Customers took back tips and tricks for using products better. In the best groups, customers rank things they would like to see done. THIS can be really helpful for an engineering team. After all, if we're building what customers want, it is a win-win. This FlexEdge community is very much like this, but ad hoc and real time. It's hard for us, sometimes, to determine how useful any given feature might be so the "piling on" -- other folks saying that something one person has suggested -- is useful to us if just to get a feeling for how important a given feature might be to our customers. So as Phil says "keep the ideas flowing." 73, Steve Stephen Hicks, N5AC, AAR6AM VP Engineering FlexRadio Systems™ 4616 W Howard Ln Ste 1-150 Austin, TX 78728 Phone: 512-535-4713 x205 Email: [email protected] Web: www.flexradio.com *Tune In Excitement™* PowerSDR™ is a trademark of FlexRadio Systems On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Don Snodgrass "KG9OM" <[email protected]>wrote: > Hello all... > > I’ve recently entered the order que for a Flex 6500 and subscribed to this > reflector. I am enjoying the ongoing discussion regarding the 6000 series. > Phil “K3TUF” said in a recent posting to “keep the ideas flowing”. I’d > like to offer one of mine albeit regarding a potential use of the USB port. > > I understand that most new 6000 series owners will opt to route > conventional microphone audio direct to the transceiver. I prefer having > the flexibility to do this in other ways. > > My current setup consists of sending USB microphone audio to the PC thence > software processed onward to a Kenwood TS-590 via a 2 way (tx and rx) USB > cable. More about my transmit audio setup details at > http://www.k4qky.com/the-station/audio-processing.html and receive audio > handling at http://www.k4qky.com/the-station/receive-audio-handling.html. > > I’d like to be able to do something similar with the 6500. What do you > think? > > 73, > > Don > > KG9OM > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > Don and Pat Snodgrass > 5 Woodhaven Estates > Metropolis, Illinois 62960 > 618-524-7590 > > [email protected] > http://www.joomlapatterns.com > http://www.k4qky.com > _______________________________________________ > 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 innovation and other > technical SDR topics. _______________________________________________ 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 innovation and other technical SDR topics.
