FlexRadio Community Forum is getting a New Platform

Recent FRS announced:

Notice of GetSatisfaction / FlexRadio User Community

Interruption of Service

•  ANNOUNCEMENT

GetSatisfaction is the SaaS provider of the FlexRadio User Community (https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio).

Recently, FlexRadio was notified by the parent company that GetSatisfaction is shutting down the web services that support our community on June 30, 2020.

Due to this unexpected development, FlexRadio now must source, provision, and deploy a new Community solution on very short notice.  This process is underway and the FlexRadio team is currently evaluating several options and preparing for the move.

Unfortunately, we do anticipate a gap in coverage between the closing down of GetSatisfaction and having a Community tool in production, but it is our goal to complete the work in as quick a time frame as possible.

In addition, we plan to migrate the topics currently hosted in GetSatisfaction into the new solution.  We may choose to take the opportunity to curate portions of the data should we find it no longer relevant to our products and services.

For our customers, we ask for your patience and understanding during this transition.  In the meantime, you can always reach out with your questions on our FaceBook groups “FlexRadio Enthusiasts” or FlexRadio Systems.  These groups are best used to interact with other FlexRadio owners and FlexRadio marketing and sales personnel should you have any ‘how-to’ questions.

If you are experiencing a software or hardware issue, please leverage our FlexRadio HelpDesk.  https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/202118688-How-to-Submit-a-Request-for-Technical-Support.

Moving forward, we will continue to keep you, our customers up to date with the progress.

For all other questions, please email info@flexradio.com

73

 Tim – W4TME, Customer Experience Manager

Posted 3 days ago

So the FlexRadio Community is being moved. From many aspects it is likely to improve the community, as the GetSatisfaction/Sprinklr product has appeared from the end user as stale and stagnant.

No announcement yet on what replacement platform FRS has selected, and while I feel sorry for anyone suddenly pushed to move part of their business to a better platform unilaterally, truly FRS has been prevaricating in making the needed transition for some time.

Expect the community to go off-line completely for a bit while things get sorted out.  And of course anything linking in or out of the old community will end up a dead link shortly.

73

Steve

K9ZW

Radio making a trip to Austin – used Flex-6700 bench-check and display

A used Flex-6700 I bought a while back is headed back to the mother ship for a good checkout and because the OLED stopped working.

A little different process in the midst of this Virus, as FRS meters-out RMAs to first allow inbound a bit of precautionary quarantine time when it arrives to them.

As the repair is not critical and the bench-check precautionary, I’ve just kept using the radio. As 95% of the time I am physically either LAN-remote or WAN-remote, I never see the display most of the time.

And the bench-check often is something I would have done when I purchased a used radio, but I was busy and never arranged for a trip to FRS at purchase.

Of my Flex-6000 radios this is the first one to go in for something wrong with it. Others have gone in, but that has been for factory installed upgrades on the first 6700 I purchased (serial #11, unboxed June 21st, 2013).

I’ve had a lot more troubles with the PC end of the equation than the radios.

73

Steve
K9ZW

Flex-6600M vs Flex-6700 – some thoughts

In the FlexRadio community someone asked what a person would pick if their choices were a Flex-6600M vs Flex-6700?

I replied:

“Presently owning 6700s and a 6600M I am very biased to the 6700 platform. My 6600 is nice but the 6700s are appealing robust!

I unboxed my oldest 6700 June 21st 2013 (serial #11) and quickly as software rolled out it retired my 5000A.

If I had to shed radios, my original 6700 would be the last SDR I’d let go.

While I seldom run up all the slices in earnest it is pretty neat to fill your screens with the panafalls!”

On more reflection if I needed something that was grab-and-go, all-in-one the 6600M wins.

If I am operating remote the choice changes to the 6700 hands down.

“Horses for Courses” as they say.  And not a bad pick in the bunch either!

73

Steve
K9ZW

More than One Flex-6000 on a Network – Configuring your Ports

It took me a while to get my head around this one, as I had been using identical ports with several Flex-6000 radios – but with one big caveat:  In my past usage only one radio per site was powered up at the same time.

It didn’t work when I wanted to leave more than one radio running at my main QTH.

Obviously my configuration was creating conflicts, as basically I’d considered each radio to be interchangeable without properly setting them up to be simultaneous with each other.

Time to do some research and ask for some guidance.

Quick executive summary for those readers who need results right away:

1. Assign a different pair of external ports for each radio through each radio’s SmartLink setup. The internal port pairs remain UDP 4993 and TCP 4994 for every radio.  

2. Usually you will want to assign your radios a static internal network IP address, but it is best to do this through a MAC address binding in “Static Lease” (also called “DHCP Reservation”) at your router.

3. Then create separate Port Forwarding rules for each radio‘s pair of ports in your Router, using your SmartLink configured external and internal pairs with their protocols and your router configured Static Lease IP address.

Internally your radios use UDP 4993 and TCP 4994.  This Port Address pair is the same for each Flex-6000.

But what you use Internally can be translated/mapped to a different External Port Address.

Externally your radio can use whatever port number you configured them for, once it is translated.

FlexRadio Systems Notes on Port Forwarding (courtesy FRS Dan N7HQ)

The translation/mapping is called “Port Forwarding” and basically hooks an external port to an internal port.  Think of the old fashion telephone operator where they physically plugged your call to the recipient’s phone.

A port is configured to communicate with a protocol.  Think modulation or mode if you are thinking radios.

Flex-6000 SD Card Protection Improvement – Time to Update is Now

All patched up with v3.1.12 and v2.6.2

Update ALL your FlexRadio Systems radios/Maestros to 3.1.12 (or 2.6.2 if you are a version 2 user) or higher when future versions are released.

Big SD-card protection against possible corruption improvement with these releases.

Quick background – earlier versions had a code issue where they hammered too hard on specific locations (I guess called “cells” in FlexRadio SD card parlance, which I think is “bad sectors”) eventually leading to electro-mechanical SD card corruption.

General release 3.1.12 and 2.6.2 fix the code.

REPOST: Background FT8 Remote via SmartLink and SmartSDR for Windows (June 6th, 2019)

REPOST of a June 6th 2019 Post. EDITS in BOLD with Brackets []

Background FT8 Remote via SmartLink and SmartSDR for Windows

If you spend long hours desk-bound like I do, your thoughts may also wander to the question “Could I make some QSOs during work? [EDIT With the immense amount of screen time working (we’re considered an essential business at work) while in isolation making any QSO is a treat.]

Back in SmartSDR v1 days I started with a Raspberry Pi VPN using a Maestro during lunch hours. Those phone (SSB) QSOs were pretty few.  Fist I had limited time and then if staff knew I was in the building they had things to bring to my attention, which is hard to manage when you are also in QSO!