Sometimes the small things matter a lot.
The Island Rack basically has been put together piecemeal, and now that it is settling into an all-FlexRadio setup it was time to tidy things up.
Here is the backside of the rack:
K9ZW Island Rack – Backside View
Kind of a “So What?!” picture as I forgot to capture before tidy-up shots.
Changes made include:
Joe KK4Q was the first to let me know that he saw my messing around with an eHam review at 6:49am June 29th 2021:
I just read your review of your new flex tuner,,, if you want it to work better, you should put it AFTER the flex amp, not between the 6700 and the amp. Joe KK4Q
Not certain my motivation, but I have long wondered if anyone actually read eHam reviews. Maybe not an excuse to mess about. Here is the review as I entered it:
My original eHam review while being posted.
(Just in case it doesn’t jump out at you, your antenna coupler/tuner is wired after the amplifier, which is fed from the transceiver (which is sometimes called an exciter in this use), which is not the way I described it in the review).
I wasn’t certain I would get a “hey you” email this quick, as my supposition is that eHam readers mostly barely skim-read reviews. I was wrong on that.
By the way, the actual shack cabling is conventional, though the PGXL being heavy and as the only 240vac physically is low in the racks and the tuner higher but below the Flex-6700.
73
Steve
K9ZW
Tom K0TTC’s gear next to my Island QTH’s rack
Tom K0TTC brought his Flex-6400 and Maestro to my Island shack so we could update software/firmware to the current SmartSDR 3.2.39 from 3.1.1x (I think it was .16 or .19).
UPS delivered a long awaited addition to the K9ZW ham shack, arriving of course on the only day I was out of town.
I removed what I thought was the inner box from the big generic shipping box filled with packing beans, a box that UPS had roughed up a bit in transit. Final unboxing was deferred to Saturday June 19th 20201 as I wanted to put this tuner into use for some weekend work.
First a few unboxing photos:
Outer Box of the 4o3a packaging
Opened – inner box, quick start notes and of course more packing beans
Those of us running SmartSDR and using the SmartLink functionality will be aware that 3rd party changes broke some of that functionality several week back.
Unexpected and it broke things hard if you were using SmartLink.
FlexRadio Systems was all over the problem, running numerous Alpha releases to their testers as quickly as they could to get functionality restored. That resulted in new releases that worked with everything except the M-model faceplate and Maestro controllers (I think it remained a WAN SmartLink issue).
Relentlessly chasing the issues to make the update uniform across the whole spectrum of SmartSDR hardware, FRS continued to release Alpha updates to the Alpha Test Team until they got the M-model/Maestro update ready.
Continue reading
The new FlexRadio TGXL TunerGenius Antenna Tuner
FlexRadio made the announcement last night via a FlexInsider announcement – the TGXL Tuner Genius antenna tuner developed in the FlexRadio Systems/4o3a working group, is ready to roll out.
The FRS link: https://www.flexradio.com/products/tuner-genius-xl/ The 4o3a page hasn’t been updated but can be found at: https://4o3a.com/tuner-genius
Two models in the initial launch, an SO2R version at $2499 and a single-path 1-input-to-3-output version at $2199.
Early PGXL Power Genius Amp buyers who had a TGXL included in their early adopter package should receive their PGXLs by early summer, with new orders to follow.
Looking forward to receiving mine.
73
Steve
K9ZW
