Hello Jim, thanks for the excellent post.  Of course now that the 6700 is
out, that undoubtedly changes everything again.  I have been told that Power
SDR isn't in use with the new 6000 series.  The rigs are of course totally
different than the 5000, which is now discontinued due to chips that are no
longer available.  Flex decided to hold on to the remaining inventory of
these out of production chip for repairing radios under warranty, and
couldn't do that and build new radios at the same time.  I have considered a
K3, and may still go that route, but I don't like the 100 watt output.
There are many amps that take more than 100 watts of drive, which sort of
rules out the 100 watt rigs.  I have a ALS600 solid state amp that I could
use to drive a big amp, but that gets somewhat complicated when trying to
control the transceiver and the intermediate driver, and then the amp
itself.

In any event, I think my best bet now is the Kenwood 990 which has 200 watts
output, and is no doubt a plenty good enough radio for the limited time that
I have left to be on the air.  As I have no plans to buy a 990 until there
has been time for Kenwood to resolve any early production issues, both
hardware and software, I have plenty of time to mull things over.  I am
certainly open to any advice or suggestions that anyone cares to offer.

73






Alan R. Downing
Phoenix, AZ

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Jim Kutsch, KY2D
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 4:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Flex Radios

Alan,
I bought a Flex 1500 when they first came out and began the process of
working on accessibility. First, their software, PowerSDR, has the ability
to control almost everything through key strokes as alternatives to mouse
actions. Reading the display was more of an issue. They have many very small
windows. I started developing some Jaws scripts and that path looked very
promising. I got as far as having Jaws automatically read out frequency,
band, and mode whenever those screen display elements changed.

I then bought a USB DJ control console. It's a box with a bunch of knobs and
buttons on it that send various USB commands to the PC. A ham in Europe had
developed an interface between the DJ console and the Flex PowerSDR
software. That was even better than the keyboard key strokes for controlling
the SDR software but the display area reading issue remained and still
required scripting.

Another point to keep in mind is that all of the SDR radios from  Flex or
Elecraft (as well as many conventional, non-SDR rigs)  can be controlled
with CAT commands from very simple PC software. CAT commands are available
to change rig settings and also to query the state of rig settings. I tried
HR Deluxe and it controlled the Flex 1500 PowerSDR just fine but I didn't
really find HR Deluxe very accessible via Jaws. So, an alternative I
considered was to create a highly accessible rig control software package
specifically for us blind hams. I later learned that was essentially what
the HamPod is.

After I had been working on accessibility for the 1500 for about a year (No,
I'm not that slow but I had really a lot of other things going on), I
decided I'd rather spend my limited spare time operating a ham radio than
writing software. I sold the Flex 1500 and bought an Elecraft KX3. As Buddy
said in another post, it has all the advantages of an SDR but has knobs and
buttons for the user interface, has Morse readout of the display and button
presses, and doesn't require having a PC connected to use it. It's a great
radio. It has absolutely the best receiver I've ever experienced. The only
drawback for me with my limited antennas is that it's QRP but there is a
matching Elecraft 100 Watt amp coming out soon.

Getting back more directly to your question, I found the SDR PC software was
far from accessible but I definitely believe it can be made to be accessible
with Jaws scripting, some redesign by the SDR authors, or custom rig control
packages. 

73, Jim, KY2D


-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Alan R. Downing
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 5:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Flex Radios

I am curious if anyone on the list has given serious thought to buying a
Flex radio, either the now discontinued 5000A, or one of the new 6000
series.  I wonder also if anyone has thought about writing a new user
interface to the new 6000 line, such that blind operators could make use of
it.  As I am told by my good friend Don, K7MX, the only part of the new 6000
software that is inside the operators own computer is the user interface.
All of the radios functionality is handled by onboard microprocessors.  This
approach is totally different from the old Flex radios, which processed
almost everything on the operators computer.  There is absolutely no
question that the Flex 6700 is the finest radios ever marketed to hams.  No
other ham radio can hold a candle to the performance of the 6700's.  In
fact, testing the new 6700's will be incredibly difficult as there is no
test equipment available that is good enough to perform the testing.  It is
sad that as time marches on, blind hams will never have access to the best
new rigs unless someone writes a user interface that we can operate.  My
understanding from talking to a number of folks directly involved with the 3
major manufacturers, is that the upper end rigs will all be software
designed radios down the road.

 

73

 

 

 

Alan R. Downing

Phoenix, AZ