How to Report Software Bugs for FlexRadio Systems' Products

May 26, 2010, 11:58 pm

≫ Next: PowerSDR v2.0 TX Audio Chain Block Diagram

How to Report Software Bugs for FlexRadio Systems' Products

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Information Management Team

FlexRadio Systems' software products are dynamic and continuously being updated. Since they are always changing, there are bound to be bugs in the software. The bugs, once identified, need to be entered into the Bug Tracker so that development can address them.

The Bug Tracker is a web based application that records the bug information and allows people to comment or blog on a particular bug report. Reports are automatically sent via e-mail to the software development team and are placed in a queue for investigation and resolution if the report is actually a software bug.

Sending bug reports to the Reflector will only result in a delay getting the bug addressed since it is not in the queue to be addressed.

When reporting a bug, please include the following:

The version of software you are using including SVN number if applicable.
Your PC setup
Your sound card (SDR-1000 users only)
A detailed description of the bug.
A step-by-step description of how to reproduce the bug
Any other pertinent information

In order to add a bug to the Bug Tracker you need to belogged on to the FlexRadio Systems Support site.

Enter into theSupport Site (http://support.flex-radio.com/Home.aspx)and click on Login at the top right hand side of thepage. Alternately you can access it directly from this URL (http://support.flex-radio.com/login.aspx).

Ifyou do not have a logon ID then click the New Registration button. Enter the required data and clickon the Submit button. If you have signed up for the Reflector,you need to un-check the box that says sign me up for the Reflector.

This KB article may reference additional files that are available on the FlexRadio Systems web site Downloads page. Please use the URL(s) below to download the referenced materials.

An Adobe Acrobat Reader may be required to open the file.You can download Adobe Acrobat from here.

KB Source Document(s):

NoneReferenced

↧

PowerSDR v2.0 TX Audio Chain Block Diagram

June 7, 2010, 4:50 am

≫ Next: How to Verify the FLEX-1500 USB Driver is Properly Loaded

≪ Previous: How to Report Software Bugs for FlexRadio Systems' Products

PowerSDR v2.0 TX Audio Chain Block Diagram

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	2.X.0
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

Below is a downloadable PDF version of the PowerSDR v2.x TX Audio Chain block diagram.

KB Source Document(s):

PowerSDR v2.x TX Audio Chain Block Diagram

↧

How to Verify the FLEX-1500 USB Driver is Properly Loaded

June 25, 2010, 2:58 am

≫ Next: What kind of computer should I buy for a FlexRadio Transceiver?

≪ Previous: PowerSDR v2.0 TX Audio Chain Block Diagram

How to Verify the FLEX-1500 USB Driver is Properly Loaded

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-1500

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

The FLEX-1500 utilizes a USB driver for communicating with your PC. There are two functional components of this driver; the USB Kernel mode component and the hardware specific component. These are automatically installed using the PowerSDR 2.x Installer program.

You can verify that both driver components have been properly installed by checking for them in the Windows Device Manager.

Use the procedure below to verify that your FlexRadio USB driver for the FLEX-1500 is properly installed.

NOTE: In this example Windows XP is the operating system. The process is the same for Vista and Win7, except some of the screens and the location of the icons may be different.

Before starting this procedure, make sure the FLEX-1500 is connected to the PC and powered up.

Step 1. Click on the START button in the lower left hand corner of your screen. Move your cursor to My Computer and right click your mouse to display the My Computer sub-menu. If using the classic view, right click your mouse on the My Computer icon on the desktop.

Step 2. Move your cursor to the Properties option and right click your mouse to display the System Properties dialog box.

Step 3. Once the System Properties dialog box is displayed right click your mouse on the Hardware tab to display the System Properties Hardware Option screen.

Step 4. Left click your mouse on the Device Manager button to display the Device Manager dialog box.

Step 5. Look for the hardware category FlexRadio. If this subcategory is not displayed the FlexRadio USB driver has not been installed. If the hardware category FlexRadio is present, expand it by clicking on the [+] to the left of it.

Step 6. As noted in the picture above taken from an XP Device Manager screen, there are two components listed under the FlexRadio hardware category.

FLEX-1500 Software Defined Radio

FlexRadio USB Kernel Driver

The FLEX-1500 Software Defined Radio driver is the low level driver that is responsible for low-latency radio control and with a properly installed driver, will always be displayed even if the FLEX-1500 is not attached and powered up. The FlexRadio USB Kernel Driver is the high level device specific portion of the low-latency radio control driver. Both of these drivers work together to provide hardware control of the radio from the PC.

If both of these driver components are displayed, then the driver is installed correctly and the FLEX-1500 is properly communicating with the PC.

If the FLEX-1500 Software Defined Radio and the FlexRadio USB Kernel Driver entries are not displayed, then the FLEX-1500 driver did not load properly and will have to be reloaded.

If the FlexRadio USB Kernel Driver component is not displayed, then either the FLEX-1500 is not connected to the PC, it is not powered up or there is another issue preventing the radio hardware from communicating with the PC. Check the USB connections and the power on state of the radio. You also may have to connect the FLEX-1500 to a different USB port.

Audio Driver Validation

When verifying the driver installation there is one additional driver that needs to be verified. It is the audio device driver that is enumerated with a properly installed FLEX-1500.

The FLEX-1500 will be displayed as an audio device under the Sound, video and game controllers category. Depending on the version of Windows you are using, the device name is enumerated differently. In the example above under Windows XP, the FLEX-1500 shows up as a USB Audio Device. Under Vista and Windows 7, it is enumerated as a FLEX-1500. See an example of a Win7 Device Manager below.

↧

What kind of computer should I buy for a FlexRadio Transceiver?

August 7, 2010, 12:17 am

≫ Next: How to Configure N1MM with PowerSDR and VAC for Voice Keying

≪ Previous: How to Verify the FLEX-1500 USB Driver is Properly Loaded

What kind of computer should I buy for a FlexRadio Transceiver?

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.X.0
Applicable Hardware:	Any FlexRadio Systems SDR

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

When buying a computer that will become the other half of a software defined radio system, it is important to understand what characteristics are needed. A software defined radio runs a real-time audio processing application (PowerSDR) and there are numerous factors that effect how well it will run, such as operating system type, system I/O throughput, and internal system latency. All of the factors are interdependent so you can not focus on just one metric such as CPU type; you must consider the whole system.

First, the "ideal" computer or PC configuration is a very subjective thing to quantify. We are bounded by things like trading cost vs. performance. Also, PowerSDR will operate at a very acceptable performance level on a wide range of computer configurations. There are also other compromises that have to be factored in.

One of the trade offs is sampling rate. A lesser PC that is not properly running PowerSDR at 96 or 192 KHz (audio drop outs) may work fine at 48 KHz.

Below are some some guidelines that you want to consider when getting a computer that will be able to run at the highest sampling rate of 192 KHz. Please note that these are only recommendations and not strict hardware endorsements from FlexRadio Systems. Selecting a computer with requirements less than what is suggested is not recommended.

Rule of Thumb - "Get the highest performance PC you can afford and get one that allows you to upgrade if necessary"

PC Resource	Recommended Components	Comments
CPU / Processor Type	Multi core processors from Intel or AMD with a fast front side bus. Hyperthreaded CPUs are acceptable too. Some examples are: Core i7 processors Quad core processors Intel Core 2 Duo AMD Phenom II AMD Athlon 2x	Multi-core CPUs are needed for operating at higher sampling rates or when using other third-party software with PowerSDR like digital mode programs Select a CPU with a large (3MB or greater per core) L2 or L3 cache.
RAM (random access memory)	2-4 GB of high clock rate DDR2 or dual-channel RAM or DDR3 Tri-channel RAM for 32-bit operating systems. 4-8 GB or RAM is recommended for 64-bit operating systems. PowerSDR does not need this much RAM, but the operating system runs faster with the proper amount of RAM and that does effect the operation of PowerSDR.	Make sure the RAM is qualified by the motherboard manufacturer. All RAM is not the same. For Dual and Tri Channel operation, the RAM chips should be "matched".
Video cards / Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) Min. Resolution: 1024x768	Medium high-end graphics engines that use AGP 8x or PCIe x16 bus slots. GPUs that use chipsets from the following companies are known to work well NVIDIA ATI	DirectX 9.0c or higher support is required You want to get a graphics card that has very fast (DDR3) memory on board. Multiple digital monitor outputs for connecting multiple monitors is a very useful option
Firewire Host Controller (FHC) Needed only for the FLEX-5000 and FLEX-3000	Most Firewire adapter that uses the Lucent Agere or Texas Instruments (TI) Firewire Host Controller chipsets.	If you have an existing FHC, try it before purchasing a bus connected FHC. PCI and PCIe bus connected cards seem to perform better than motherboard integrated FHCs.
USB Controllers Needed only for the FLEX-1500	USB 1.1 Controller	The FLEX-1500 has a USB 1.x full speed interface so there are no special USB requirements such as needing a USB2. or 3.z controller.

CPU type and Speed:
You used to be able to tell if a CPU was a better performer if it had a higher clock speed. Multi-core processors have changed this tried and true metric. You definitely want to use a multi-core (AMD or Intel) processor since future versions of PowerSDR will be taking advantage of the technology provide by those chips. You also want to get a CPU that has the largest L2 or L3 (or combination of both) on-chip memory cache available, depending on CPU manufacturer.

Video Graphics Controller:
PowerSDR currently utilizes only non-hardware accelerated 2-D graphics, but this could change where the display could support OpenGL 3-D rendering. A mid high-end video card that has an NVIDIA or ATI graphics engine (GPU) and has fast graphics memory on the card is recommended. The cards that use the PCI-E x16 slots will provide faster performance over the older AGP based cards. It is also recommended that you get a video card that will allow you to connect two or more monitors to it at one time. Many people are using dual monitors with PowerSDR to allow other programs to easily fit on the screen like logging and digital mode programs.

RAM:
PowerSDR does not use a lot of it, but the operating system (Windows) likes to have it available. Get the fastest DDR2/DDR3 RAM your motherboard will support and get at least 1 GB of it for Windows XP; 2 GB is highly recommended. If you are using Windows Vista or Win7, 2 GB is the minimum for 32-bit versions and 4 GB is recommended for 64-bit versions. 32-bit operating systems can only address up to 4 GB of RAM so adding more than 4 GB of RAM to a 32-bit operating system does not provide any benefit.

FireWire Host Controllers (FLEX-5000 and FLEX-3000 only):
One of the more critical elements for determining if a computer will run PowerSDR with a FlexRadio Systems Firewire based software defined radio is the throughput achieved from the Firewire host controller. Most computers today come with an integrated Firewire interface. In general, these integrated peripherals are usually not optimized for high throughput data rates. Using an a bus connected Firewire host controller card that is PCI or PCI-E based is recommended for optimum data throughput. For laptops, you want to get an ExpressCard Firewire host controller rather than a PCMCIA if at all possible.

The second thing to consider are Firewire chipsets. The manufacturer of the FireWire interface used in the FLEX-5000/FLEX-3000 recommends FireWire cards based on the Lucent AGERE chip set. Texas Instruments (TI) has the most compatible chip set across a wide variety of Firewire devices.

Refer to the following Knowledge Center article Selecting High Performance Firewire Cards for FlexRadio Transceivers for more information regarding selecting a Firewire host controller for your PC.

Monitors:
The most important consideration for a monitor other than size is how much EMF it radiates and the resultant RFI to the software defined radio hardware. LDC displays seem to have lower EMF than CRT type displays, but the resolution of LCDs is less than that of CRTs (a trade off). You want a lot of monitor "real estate" consider one of the new HD wide screen type monitors that are at least 20". Refer to the Video Graphics Controller section above.

Hard Drives:
PowerSDR does not utilize a hard drive to any great degree after the program has started and is running. Windows on the other hand does use the hard drive for managing memory utilization by creating virtual memory with a "swap file". If your PC is low in the amount of RAM it has installed, Windows will swap out RAM to the hard drive. This hard disk activity has the over all effect of slowing down your PC causing PowerSDR to momentarily freeze up causing disruptions. Even systems with sufficient amounts of RAM will still experience Windows swapping memory out to the hard drive's swap file, but to a lesser extent.

It is important to get a fast hard drive to mitigate the effects of Windows using virtual memory. There are several characteristics of hard drives that should be considered. The first is interface type. Older computers use IDE data interfaces. Newer computers use SATA. SATA is faster than IDE and should be used. There are different speeds for SATA drives. Get the fastest SATA drive that your PC supports. Platter rotational speed and seek times are the two other primary factors for selecting a hard drive. You want to choose a hard drive that has the fastest platter rotational speed (measured in RPMs) and has the lowest seek times (measured in milliseconds).

Laptop or Desktop:
In general, a desktop computer does not have the power and heat constraints that are taken into account when engineering a laptop computer, therefore desktop computers are higher in performance when both have comparable CPUs and RAM. Recent advances in laptop technology have been producing some laptops with very high performance that have been known to work well with PowerSDR especially ones that incorporate multi-core CPUs but this is not true for all laptops even from the same manufacturer that have the same CPU architecture. Additionally, Firewire performance on laptop computers with integrated Firewire controllers has been reported to be lacking. This issue is easily corrected by using either an ExpressCard or PCMCIA (PC Card) Firewire host controller rather than the integrated Firewire port on the laptop. This is usually not an issue with USB controllers that are used with the FLEX-1500

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

How to Configure N1MM with PowerSDR and VAC for Voice Keying

December 8, 2010, 10:22 pm

≫ Next: SAM mode - Explained

≪ Previous: What kind of computer should I buy for a FlexRadio Transceiver?

How to Configure N1MM with PowerSDR and VAC for Voice Keying

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.14.0
Applicable Hardware:	All FlexRadio SDRs

Content provided by: Mack, WB4MAK

The intent of this article is to describe in detail the setup and configuration of N1MM for voice keying with PowerSDR. The configuration of VAC’s parameters other than the audio and PTT are outside the scope of this article.

Configuration Overview and Required Software
In this procedure we are assuming that you have your software defined radio and PowerSDR properly communicating and are using the most current versions of PowerSDR. It is also assumed that you have VAC and your virtual COM port program properly configured. This procedure was developed using the FLEX-5000, so it is important that you have the latest Firewire driver and firmware loaded for your radio as well. It should work equally well on any Flex radio.

Step 1. Download and install the latest version of N1MM
You can download N1MM software from the N1MM Home Page . For this procedure, N1MM 10.10.2 was used.

Step 2. Download, install and configure a virtual com port software (Com0Com, VSPE or VSPmanager) for PTT Control
Although there are several different free software packages for enabling virtual com ports, I prefer to use VSPE because it support Win 7 x64 and is very fast. You can download the virtual com port software from the VSPE Home Page. For this procedure VSPE 0.938.4.846 was used. Any of the virtual port packages should work fine.

Step 3. Download, install and configure the Virtual Audio Cable software (VAC)
VAC is a program that transfers the TX audio from PowerSDR to N1MM and subsequently transfers the RX audio from N1MM to PowerSDR without using a physical interface between the radio and a computer sound card. VAC makes PowerSDR "look" like a sound card or Windows audio device to N1MM. The benefit of VAC is that the audio exchanged between PowerSDR and N1MM stays entirely in the digital domain resulting in high dynamic range signals and there are no wires to introduce RF into the software defined radio system.

VAC is not free open source software. It must be purchased from the authors web site. There is a demo version of VAC but it can not be used because the demo version corrupts the audio I/O with a pre-recorded voice telling you it is demo software, essentially making it crippleware. For this procedure, VAC 4.09 (4.90) was used.

Step 4. Configure PowerSDR to use VAC and VSPE to interface with N1MM
Once the required software is downloaded and installed on your computer, the next step is to configure PowerSDR to use the VAC virtual audio cable for audio transfer and to configure a PTT line so that N1MM can key the transceiver. For this procedure PowerSDR 1.14.15 was used.

Step 5. Configure the Audio and PTT ports in N1MM
The final step is to configure PTT control and the audio input and output connections for N1MM. This is probably the most confusing part of the N1MM configuration since the audio setup interface is very rudimentary.

Step 1. Download and install the latest version of N1MM
Using the URL listed above in Step 1 of the Configuration Overview and Required Software section for the N1MM home page download and install N1MM.

Step 2. Download, install and configure a virtual com port software VSPE for PTT Control
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of virtual com port pairs that are sometimes called virtual null modem cables, you can refer to the Knowledge Center article, What is a virtual com port or null modem emulator? , for a detailed description of how virtual com port software works.

As noted above, in this example, VSPE virtual com port software is used. For this configuration only one pair is required. I have configured my virtual com port pair as 2/18. Ensure you configure VSPE to NOT assert RTS or DTR.

Step 3. Download, install and configure the Virtual Audio Cable software (VAC)
As noted above, you must purchase VAC as it is a commercial product. Using the URL listed above in Step 3 of the Configuration Overview and Required Software section for the VAC home page you can purchase your copy of VAC if you have not already done so. If you have VAC 4.x, but it is not version 4.09, you are entitled to get minor version upgrades. To get them, you must contact the company or software distributor from whom you purchased VAC from initially as the upgrades are not directly available from the VAC home page. This procedure has not been tested with the 3.x version of VAC and some older versions of VAC 4.x have been reported not to work for whatever reason.

The VAC package is distributed as a ZIP archive. Simply unpack it into an empty folder, run setup.exe application and follow the instructions displayed. If you are installing VAC for the first time, please review the readme.txt and vac.chm (Windows Help) files before installation. If you have already installed previous version of VAC 4.x, don't forget to uninstall it before installation.

Using the Knowledge Center article, How to Setup Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) 4.0x with PowerSDR 1.x , execute steps 1 through 3 for the instructions to configure the two (2) VAC audio cables. The instructions in the KC article represent a very "conservative" configuration. For the N1MM configuration, we will use a more optimized configuration but it will work with the conservative configuration.

Make the following changes:

Ms per Int = 5
Stream Fmt = Cable Range
BPS = 8 .. 16

Step 4. Configure PowerSDR to use VAC and VSPE to interface with N1MM
Using the same Knowledge Center article referenced in Step 3, How to Setup Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) 4.0x with PowerSDR 1.x , execute steps 4 through 6 of the instructions to configure the PowerSDR VAC Audio parameters.

Make the following changes:

Driver = MME

Virtual Audio Cable Setup (Input) = Virtual Cable 1

Virtual Audio Cable Setup (Output) = Virtual cable 2

NOTE: Do not worry about the TX and RX Gain (dB) values, those will be set later.

Configure PowerSDR to use a com port for external keying by configuring. PowerSDR will use the virtual com port 18 of the virtual comport pair 2/18.

Start PowerSDR and open the Setup form

Select the CAT Control tab.

In the PTT Control section, click on the drop down box and select the virtual com port of the virtual com port pair defied previously in a step above. In this example I used COM18.

Check only the DTR check box.

Check the Enable PTT check box.

Check on the Apply button and close the Setup form

Step 5. Configure the Audio and PTT ports in N1MM
First, we will set up the PTT port for N1MM.

PTT Port Configuration

Start N1MM
From the main N1MM window (GUI), left click on Config and choose Configure Ports, Telnet Address, Other
Check the CW/Other box that corresponds to the virtual serial cable pair that you set up previously. In this example check Com2.
Now left click on Com2 Set. Set DTR to PTT.
Audio Channel Configuration

Within N1MM left click on Config, and choose Configure Ports, Telnet Address, Other. Left click the Audio tab.

Configure as shown in the following screenshot.

1 – Zero or Single Card
Select Device Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)
Select Input Line Line 2
Radio Input Port Line 1

To test the configuration, startup PowerSDR and N1MM in this manner

Start PowerSDR
Switch to LSB or USB mode and make sure VAC is enabled
Start N1MM
Using your preconfigured audio files (I use Audacity to record) configure N1MM Config select Change CW/SSB/Digital Function Definitions to point to your sound clips and map them to an F key on your keyboard.
Press one of your F-Keys that you previously defined and test that PowerSDR transmits the audio properly. You may enable MON within PowerSDR to monitor the audio on your signal.
Adjust the gain within PowerSDR VAC to the properly level.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

SAM mode - Explained

March 1, 2011, 1:30 am

≫ Next: FLEX-5000A and FLEX-5000C Transceiver Specifications

≪ Previous: How to Configure N1MM with PowerSDR and VAC for Voice Keying

SAM mode - Explained

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.X.0
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000

Content provided by: Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

It is just a different type of AM detector. Synchronous AM detection (SAM) phase-locks the BFO to the AM carrier and then uses the BFO with product detection. It doesn't suffer from the loss of intelligibility during QSB that a normal AM envelope detector does. But you also can't see zero beat with it either since it will track the AM carrier even if you tune a little bit off-frequency.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

FLEX-5000A and FLEX-5000C Transceiver Specifications

March 7, 2011, 5:40 pm

≫ Next: FLEX-3000 Transceiver Specifications

≪ Previous: SAM mode - Explained

FLEX-5000A and FLEX-5000C Transceiver Specifications

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

General

Rx Frequency Range:

10 KHz - 60 MHz

(Customer provided preselector or appropriately selected low pass filters required to eliminate images when used below 1.8 MHz)

160 - 6 m (specified performance, Amateur bands only)

Transmitter Frequency Range:

160 - 6 m (Amateur bands only)

Frequency Stability:

±0.5 ppm 32 °F to 122 °F (0 °C to +50 °C)

Ambient Operating Temperature Range:

14 °F to 122 °F (–10 °C to +50 °C)

Emission Modes:

A1A (CW), A3E (AM), J3E (LSB, USB), F3E (FM),

F1B (RTTY), F1D (PACKET), F2D (PACKET)

Frequency Steps:

1Hz minimum

Antenna Impedance:

50 Ohms, unbalanced

6 - 1000 Ohms, unbalanced (With Optional Tuner ON, 160 - 10 m Amateur bands)

16 - 150 Ohms, unbalanced (With Optional Tuner ON, 6 m Amateur band)

Power Consumption:

Rx 1.5A (typ.); Tx (100 W) 25A (max.)

Supply Voltage:

DC: DC 13.8 V ± 10%

Maximum Interconnect Cable Length:

Firewire - 10 feet (3m),

No restriction on DC power cable within voltage tolerance limits under load.

Special EMI/RFI Requirements:

NOTE: Necessary to minimize RFI radiation from the cables attached to the radio

1 snap on ferrite bead on DC power cable,

2 snap on ferrite beads on FireWire® cable

1 snap on ferrite bead on FlexWire™ cable

All beads to be located adjacent to rear panel of radio.

FLEX-5000A Dimensions:

(WxHxD): 9.3” x 8.7” x 13.8” (23.5 cm x 22.1 cm x 31.5 cm)

FLEX-5000A Weight:

(approx.): 13 lbs (5.9 kg)

Transmitter

Power Output:

1 - 100 watts PEP CW and SSB (2 - 25 watts AM carrier)

28 MHz IF Power Output:

0 dBm (1.0 milliwatt)

Emission Modes Types:

A1A (CWU, CWL), J3E (USB, LSB), A3E (AM), F3E (FM), DIGITAL

Spurious and Harmonic Radiation:

Better than –55 dB (160 - 10m Amateur bands)

Better than –65 dB (6m Amateur band)

SSB Carrier Suppression:

At least 55 dB below peak output

Undesired Sideband Suppression:

At least 60 dB below peak output

Audio Response (SSB):

90 Hz @ -3dB / flat to upper limit set by software, Software EQ optional

3rd-order IMD:

Better than –33 dB below PEP @14.2 MHz 100 watts PEP

9th-order IMD:
Better than –54 dB below PEP @14.2 MHz 100 watts PEP

Image Rejection:

88 dB

Microphone Impedance:

600 Ohms (200 to 10k Ω)

Balanced Line In Impedance:

600 Ohms (200 to 10k Ω)

Receiver

Circuit Type:

Direct conversion, low IF

Intermediate Frequency:

Software selectable from DC to 20 KHz

Sensitivity (preamp off/on):

1.3/0.3 µV at 14 MHz

MDS (preamp off/on):

-123 dBm/-133 dBm in 500 Hz BW

IMD DR3 (dynamic range):

99 dB at 14 MHz with preamp off or off at 2 kHz or less tone spacing

IP3:

+30 dBm at 14 MHz with preamp off at 2 kHz or less tone spacing (S5 IM3 test method)

+39 dBm at 14 MHz with preamp off at 2 kHz or less tone spacing (ARRL test method)
IP2:
+63 dBm at 14 MHz with preamp off at 2 kHz or less tone spacing (ARRL test method)

Selectivity (–6/–60 dB):

CW 500 Hz –6/-60 dB: 500/640

SSB 2.4 kHz –6/-60 dB: 2.39/2.54

AM 6.6 kHz –6/-60 dB: 6.60/6.74

Image Rejection:

70 dB or better (160 - 6m Amateur bands)

Certifications:

CE Declaration of Conformity (25-August-2007) for the FLEX-5000A

CE Declaration of Conformity (23-August-2008) for the FLEX-5000A with RX2 (second receiver)

Specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation, and specifications are guaranteed only within the amateur radio bands.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

FLEX-3000 Transceiver Specifications

March 7, 2011, 5:41 pm

≫ Next: DPCLAT - DPC Latency Checker Tool

≪ Previous: FLEX-5000A and FLEX-5000C Transceiver Specifications

FLEX-3000 Transceiver Specifications

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-3000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

General

Rx Frequency Range:

10 KHz - 60 MHz

(Customer provided preselector or appropriately selected low pass filters required to eliminate images when used below 1.8 MHz)

160 - 6 m (specified performance, Amateur bands only)

Transmitter Frequency Range:

160 - 6 m (Amateur bands only)

Frequency Stability:

TBD

Ambient Operating Temperature Range:

14 °F to 122 °F (–10 °C to +50 °C)

Emission Modes:

A1A (CW), A3E (AM), J3E (LSB, USB), F3E (FM),

F1B (RTTY), F1D (PACKET), F2D (PACKET)

Frequency Steps:

1Hz minimum

Antenna Impedance:

50 ohms

Power Consumption:

Rx 1.5A (typ.); Tx (100 W) 25A (max.)

Supply Voltage:

DC: DC 13.8 V ± 10%

Maximum Interconnect Cable Length:

Firewire - 10 feet (3m),

No restriction on DC power cable within voltage tolerance limits under load.

Special EMI/RFI Requirements:

NOTE: Necessary to minimize RFI radiation from the cables attached to the radio

1 snap on ferrite bead on DC power cable,

2 snap on ferrite beads on FireWire® cable

1 snap on ferrite bead on FlexWire™ cable

All beads to be located adjacent to rear panel of radio.

FLEX-3000 Dimensions:

(WxHxD): 12.25” x 1.75” x 12.25” (31.1 cm x 4.4 cm x 31.1 cm)

FLEX-3000 Weight:

(approx.): 9 lbs (4.08 kg)

Transmitter

Power Output:

1 - 100 watts PEP CW and SSB (2 - 25 watts AM carrier)

Emission Modes Types:

A1A (CWU, CWL), J3E (USB, LSB), A3E (AM), F3E (FM), DIGITAL

Spurious and Harmonic Radiation:

160-10m: -55 dB
6m: -65 dB

SSB Carrier Suppression:

Better than > 70 dB @ peak output

Undesired Sideband Suppression:

Better than 65 dB @ peak output

Audio Response (SSB):

90 Hz @ -3dB / flat to upper limit set by software, Software EQ optional

3rd-order IMD:

160-10m: -31 dB

6m: -30 dB

9th-order IMD:
160-10m: -48 dB

6m: -48 dB

Image Rejection:

TBD

Microphone Impedance:

600 Ohms (200 to 10k Ω)

Receiver

Circuit Type:

Direct conversion, low IF

Intermediate Frequency:

Software selectable from DC to 20 KHz

Sensitivity (preamp off/on):

1.3 / 0.3 µV (-123/-133 dBm in 500 Hz)

MDS (preamp off/on):

-121 dBm (14.2 MHz, preamp off)

-135 dBm (14.2 MHz, preamp-2 on)

-137 dBm (50.125 MHz, preamp on)

IMD DR3 (dynamic range):

95 dB (@ 2 KHz spacing / 14.2 MHz))

IP3:

Greater than +26 dBm (preamp off)
IP2:
+69 dBm (Preamp off)
+45 dBm (Preamp-2 on)

Selectivity (–6 to 60 dB):

CW 500/640

SSB 2.39/2.54

AM 6.6/6.74

Image Rejection:

160-10m: 96dB or better

6m: 71 dB or better

Certifications:

CE Declaration of Conformity received May 2009.

Specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation, and specifications are guaranteed only within the amateur radio bands.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

DPCLAT - DPC Latency Checker Tool

June 20, 2011, 6:35 am

≫ Next: How to Adjust RF Power Output for Best IMD when Operating Digital Modes

≪ Previous: FLEX-3000 Transceiver Specifications

DPCLAT - DPC Latency Checker Tool

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	All Windows versions
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

This KB article references the DPC Latency checker (dpclat.exe) by Thesycon that can be used to analyze you system for excessive or abnormally long DPC (differed procedure calls) that adversely effect applications that run in real time, such as PowerSDR. Below is some information from the Thesycon web site.

The DPC Latency Checker tool determines the maximum DPC latency that occurs on your Windows system and thus enables you to check the real-time capabilities of your computer. DPC Latency Checker works independent of any external hardware. Using this tool may be helpful in the following situations:

You experience interruptions (drop-outs) in a flow of data processed in real-time, for example an audio stream, video stream or a sequence of measuring data, and you want to find out the reason for this problem.
You want to verify that your Windows system is configured properly so that it is capable of handling real-time data transfer before you install the corresponding streaming application.
You want to check if a particular computer system is suitable for streaming applications, for example before you buy this system.

If any kernel-mode device driver in your Windows system is implemented improperly and causes excessive latencies of Deferred Procedure Calls (DPCs) then probably drop-outs will occur when you use real-time audio or video streaming applications.

Use the Related Links below to download the most recent version of the DPC Latency Tool, how to use it to determine if you have excessive latencies possible strategies to resolve the problems resulting from excessive DPCs

KB Source Document(s):

NoneReferenced

↧

How to Adjust RF Power Output for Best IMD when Operating Digital Modes

June 30, 2011, 6:10 pm

≫ Next: FLEX-3000/1500 RJ-45 Mic to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

≪ Previous: DPCLAT - DPC Latency Checker Tool

How to Adjust RF Power Output for Best IMD when Operating Digital Modes

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	2.0.x
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000/3000

Content provided by: Tim, W4TME& Brian, WB6RQN

When using a traditional analog transceiver to adjust the power output when running digital modes, it is customary adjust the radio's RF output until the ALC begins to register and then back it off a little bit. With a FlexRadio SDR running PowerSDR and using VAC for the digital audio transfer between PowerSDR and the sound card digital mode program, the following technique can lead to better control and cleaner signals.

In the olden days, the mic gain was how you controlled power output from your radio so to those of us who grew up with older radios, this approach seems natural. You would just advance the mic gain until just below the level where you actuated the ALC (onset of clipping) and you were all done. If you wanted less power you just turned down the PA RF gain (power).

What typically happens is that people set the AF input gain control a bit too high and then compensate by turning down the RF drive level. The result is clipping at an early stage within the radio. Most analog radios can tolerate a bit of over-driving at an early stage. The result is minor compression of the peaks and a minor increase in distortion. In fact, for SSB operation this might even provide just a bit more "punch" to the signal.

In the case of an SDR, the clipping is hard flat-topping, usually from exceeding the range of the A/D converter at the audio input. The rise in distortion is very rapid. So in order to ensure that all the stages are operating linearly, one must be sure to keep the input level below that which produces any clipping at all. Fortunately for us the FlexRadio Systems software defined radios have an indicator of AF input level at different stages in the TX audio chain. If ALC, which is at the end of the TX audio chain is indicating less than 0dB, you are not clipping the signal in the radio. With the VAC TX Gain (input signal) at 0 and the drive level set for 100, the RF output is 100 watts if using a pure tone. If you want to reduce the output and still make sure you have some headroom to prevent clipping, it is easier to turn down the VAC TX Gain (input level). Setting the VAC TX Gain in order to produce a -5dB ALC level should produce a RF output that is close to 50% of the PAs rated power.

Procedure for Adjust RF Power Output for Best IMD when Operating Digital Modes

Step 1. Set the PA Gain to 100.
Set your PA drive at 100. When you keep the audio input levels below -1dB, this will produce a signal that has the most optimal IMD figure with the maximum RF output.

Step 2. Set the TX Meter to Forward Power (FWD PWR)
You are going adjust your RF output by changing the VAC TX Gain (AF input) and not by turning down the drive on the PA. So you need the TX meter set for Forward Power rather than ALC.

Step 3. Adjust the VAC TX Gain (audio input) Until you Reach the Desired RF Power Level Out.
For PSK31 or other low wattage digital modes, adjust the VAC TX gain until you hit 35 watts output. On my setup that is about a value of -5. For other higher power digital modes, adjust the VAC TX gain up until you reach the desired RF output level that does not exceed 100 watts PEP.

Step 4. Check to See if you are Over Driving the Radio's AF Input
Now change your TX meter to ALC and you should be well below 0 dB. If you run the VAC TX gain up to 0, you should be very close to 0 db on the ALC TX meter reading and consequently putting out about 100 watts PEP. You never want to exceed 0 dB on the TX ALC meter or your signal will be distorting due to DSP clipping. Peaking at -1 dB is the recommended maximum audio input for digital mode operation.

BTW, if you are operating PSK you need to realize that PSK31 is not pure PSK but has envelope shaping in order to minimize the sidebands. This means that there is amplitude variation along with the phase shift in the carrier. It is a good idea to include some headroom so that the amplitude peaks are not clipping. Setting the VAC TX Gain to produce a ALC level output of something less than -3dB is probably safe.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

FLEX-3000/1500 RJ-45 Mic to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

July 15, 2011, 2:46 am

≫ Next: FLEX-5000 Balanced Line-In to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

≪ Previous: How to Adjust RF Power Output for Best IMD when Operating Digital Modes

FLEX-3000/1500 RJ-45 Mic to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-3000 & FLEX-1500

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

The following wiring diagram represents how to wire the modular FLEX-3000 & FLEX-1500 RJ-45 8-pin microphone connector to the W2IHY EQplus and the 8-Band EQ using the 5-pin DIN connector.

NOTE: Connect the GROUND (GND) to the cable shield but do not connect it to the shield of the DIN connector

FLEX-3000/1500 Microphone Pinout Configuration
Pin Number	Function
1	Not Used - Reserved for future use
2	Not Used - Reserved for future use
3	Vcc (+5 VDC)
4	Microphone Ground (mic -)
5	Microphone In (mic +)
6	PTT (PTT +)
7	PTT Ground (PTT -)
8	Not Used - Reserved for future use

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

FLEX-5000 Balanced Line-In to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

July 15, 2011, 2:55 am

≫ Next: Remote Operation of PowerSDR Using TeamViewer

≪ Previous: FLEX-3000/1500 RJ-45 Mic to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

FLEX-5000 Balanced Line-In to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering & W2IHY

The following wiring diagram represents how to wire the FLEX-5000 Balanced Line-In (1/4" TRS) and PTT to the W2IHY EQplus and the 8-Band EQ using the 5-pin DIN connector.

NOTE: Connect the GROUND (GND) to the cable shield but do not connect it to the shield of the DIN connector

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

Remote Operation of PowerSDR Using TeamViewer

July 17, 2011, 11:30 pm

≫ Next: How to use the FM Repeater Mode

≪ Previous: FLEX-5000 Balanced Line-In to W2IHY Audio Interface Configuration

Remote Operation of PowerSDR Using TeamViewer

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	2.X.0
Applicable Hardware:	All FlexRadio SDRs

Content provided by: Harry, W9BR

Having run a remote radio for several years over the internet, I have had many disappointments and achievements through the use of software and hardware interfaces. Surely the very best experiences have been accomplished with my FLEX-5000a. I have run in the past, Kenwood, Icom and a SDR-1000, all remotely. I have built hardware audio interfaces for the hardware radios that had plugged into the mike jacks to provide audio in and out of these radios. The audio has always been a challenge to get the very best quality and the lowest latency. This article describes how to use TeamViewer PC and iPad applications to remote your FlexRadio Systems software defined radio running PowerSDR 2.x

Getting Started with your FlexRadio Software Defined Radio

The Flex product is a PC based user interface (and also a software defined product) using the PC to control the radio and define the filters, etc of the radio. This makes it easy as using a remote desktop product would appear to be the only thing that is required. However, we still need to get the audio connected to the radio. In the past, I have used a VPN connection to my home network, Windows Remote Desktop, and a VoIP product called IPSound. I had a lot of success with it at first, but there are certain anomalies with IPSound that cannot be resolved, and I moved on. IPSound requires a fixed IP address and most people have dynamic addresses.

The greatest success I have had is with a remote desktop product called TeamViewer. TeamViewer is a free product for a non-commercial user and it can be downloaded at www.TeamViewer.com. The other GREAT thing about the TeamViewer product is that recent upgrades to their software provides a VoIP tunnel, right within the product that can be “mapped” to the audio input of the Flex. This allows you to make an audio connection and control the computer with a single product.

You however are required to purchase Virtual Audio Cables from an online store. The VAC product allows you to “patch” audio inputs and outputs from the Flex and your computer audio. It is much like using physical audio patch cables, but they are virtually done in software (thus Virtual Audio Cables). Go to http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm purchase the software. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE TRIAL VERSION HAS TEST AUDIO THAT KEEPS REPEATING ON IT AND IT IS NOT USABLE FOR ACTUAL FLEX OPERATION. You need to buy it. I run version 4.08 with no problems. The current version is 4.10.

TeamViewer & PowerSDR Installation and Setup

Download and get TeamViewer free operating on your remote computer. Also download and get TeamViewer running on your local (ham shack) computer. When this process is completed using all of the instructions provided by TeamViewer, you should have an Icon on the bottom right hand side of your tool bar by the clock.

By clicking on the icon, you will get a screen that allows you to sign into the TeamViewer and then log on to your remote computer. Follow their instructions to do this. You can set up a permanent password to easily log in again, or log in automatically when you click one button.

When you have successfully logged in, you now see your remote computer screen, as you can see mine here. You will also see some other programs that I have running in the background that I will explain later. You now can see the PowerSDR screen that you can operate just as you do when you are sitting in front of your PC at home. The only thing you lack now is your audio connections.

Your Virtual Audio Cable program was previously installed ON THE HAM SHACK COMPUTER. Using the instructions provided with that program, create some “virtual patch cords” to patch audio with the VAC program.

I created 4 of them here. All I require to use for the TeamViewer patching is cables 1 and 2. Go to PowerSDR program and select SETUP / AUDIO / VAC…. You should see the following screen. Make sure that the driver is Windows Direct Sound and that the Input is set to Virtual Audio Cable 1 and the output is set to Virtual Audio Cable 2. You can turn on the VAC operation in this window or from the front panel of PowerSDR. Also note that you can set other VAC parameters in this setup window. One of the most important will be the TX and RX gain controls as when you are using VAC, the front panel SDR gain controls for mike audio and receive audio are ignored on VAC.

OK, now let’s get the audio working over the TeamViewer VoIP connection.

In the top window of the local computer, you will see a TeamViewer Tab in the center of the screen. Click on the Audio/Video and then click on VoIP. This produces another small window in the upper right hand side of the screen on the local computer. Now your screen looks like this.

You now need to click on the lower right hand side of this new box where you see an arrow and some script. It will then say audio settings. Click on the “audio settings” and now you have a new box that looks like this:

This new box is where you set the audio input and audio output of the LOCAL COMPUTER.

Now we have to set the audio input and output of the Ham Shack computer. To do this, click OK on the “open audio setting” window (which closes that window) and now click on the same looking audio setting box in the lower right hand side of the HAM SHACK COMPUTER. The screen now looks like this:

You are now seeing the same looking screen on the Ham Shack computer.

Do the same thing. That is SET THE AUDIO INPUT AND OUTPUT OF THE (HAM SHACK) COMPUTER. This has to match the settings in Power SDR VAC. In this case, Virtual Audio Cable 1 is set as the Speakers and Virtual Audio Cable 2 is set as the Microphone. Now last and very importantly, you must click on each one of the computer screens (Local and Ham Shack), “Transmit my Audio Now”. At this point you will hear the Flex audio in the local computer’s selected speakers (headphones) and when you click on the MOX button on the SDR front panel, you will be able to transmit the remote audio. Using a combination of the TeamViewer audio setting screens and the VAC settings in Power SDR, set a comfortable listening and transmit audio without over-driving the input. “Tweak” your audio at the remote site using the EQ settings of the Power SDR and then you should save the settings within your Power SDR favorites (database) as “Remote”. You can listen to you transmitted audio remotely by listening to it using the MON (Monitor) button. However, hearing the latency over the internet will probably produce an echo that is not pleasing for your normal operation. However, it does allow you to set a good transmit level and EQ setting. Sometimes I record a WAV file and play it back using the Flex capabilities and this allows you perfect audio settings.

Some people prefer VOX and this is also possible using the remote set up. Just select VOX and you can let the Flex transmit and receive using VOX. This usually works best for remote operation as it lets the Flex automatically transmit and receive to the transmitted word, rather than when you think you need to go back into receive. With the delay (or latency) of the internet, sometimes it can be seconds, so this way you don’t cut off words when you manually think that you are done with a sentence. Use either operation to meet your situation.

I also had some other things on my desktop that you saw before. I am a huge promoter of the Wavenode WN-2 product www.wavenode.com. In addition to using it to see my Power out, it controls other things. I use it to control the power on/off, Power Amp On/Off, FLEX-5000 on/off, antennas on/grounded, etc. The Wavenode in this screen shows my Wavenode settings and my Power IN and Out. In this example, I am only showing the exciter power in both the in and out of the amp. My FLEX-5000 has a reed relay that I installed across the power control switch of the FLEX-5000, which when operated, by the WN-2 is like pushing the front panel 5000 power switch. A feature that Al Burros of Wavenode added for the Flex users is momentary operation of the soft buttons on the Wavenode PC interface. When you momentarily click on the Flex button, it activates the reed relay in the Flex, which simulates you pressing the front panel switch of the FLEX-5000 for ON or OFF operation. You can also wire up to button “lights” if you want to see what is on or off on the User Interface as the WN-2 has logical inputs. I can see when my SGC power amp fault light has “tripped”.

In this screen shot, I have turned on the SGC amp. It is a perfect companion to the FLEX-5000 and I highly recommend it. It has all of the protection circuits that you require for remote high power operation (it is meant to run in a trunk of a car!!).The SGC-500 has a very easy on/off/reset logic input. That logic input is controlled by the Wavenode WN-2 logic out and when turned on, now can produce as much as 700 watts out, when you use the 16 volt SGC power supply. In mobile use you only get 500 watts at 13 volts. This is very clean RF power. I also run fans on the heat sinks of the SGC continuously when it is turned on.

The other utility that is a must for remote operation is DDUtil by K5FR. This is a tremendous tool to use for automating other things, like antennas, other switching utilities. Etc. Most importantly to me, it clones your FLEX-5000 RS-232 output signal to feed multiple devices, such as antenna switches and my Palstar AT-Auto.

Remoting Your FlexRadio Systems SDR from an iPad

My very latest endeavor has been to use my iPad to control my FLEX-5000. I totally love this operation. The iPad fires up fast, it is very easy to use, and has great audio. The only down side is that the TeamViewer app for iPad does not allow the VoIP tunnel. Therefore you have to use an alternate method of getting the audio to the ham shack computer. I use Skype, and have great audio reports with it!!

Getting Started with the iPad

Do everything on the ham shack computer exactly as explained above. The only difference now is that you must “map” the audio in and out from Skype using the Virtual Audio Cables to PowerSDR.

Download the TeamViewer app from the app store on your iPad. The setup is very straight forward. You will log into your home PC similar to what you do on a PC, but using your iPad. The big difference is that once you set up your preferences and TeamViewer remembers them on the iPad, it is very simple.

Download the Skype app from the app store. You will have to use a different Skype name on the iPad than your home computer. Go to Tools/options/audio settings in the Skype windows. On your home PC, Match the audio settings of the audio output of your radio to the audio input of Skype. MATCH the audio audio input of your radio to the audio output of Skype. My sequence is to go on my iPad Skype first, then call my home machine. After I hear ringing on the iPad, I go to the TeamViewer app on the iPad (do not close the Skype app) by simply hitting the left button on the iPad screen one time and touching the TeamViewer Icon on the iPad screen. Go through the sign on procedure for TeamViewer. When you see your home PC screen, you will see the Skype ringing. Click on the Skype answer button on your home screen. If your VAC is set up right, (the VAC button clicked on your 5000, etc) you should hear audio on the iPad. You can use the built in microphone on the iPad, but the audio may sound “boomy” and needs to be EQ’d.

This is my favorite operating position. It is a bar!!! I am having my beer, waiting on dinner and checking into one of my favorite nightly nets. All done while on the road at my regular job!! Note the ear buds on the bar.
Use a standard set of Apple ear buds with a mike like for an iPhone for good audio.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

How to use the FM Repeater Mode

July 18, 2011, 4:35 am

≫ Next: Updating the ohci1394.sys Firewire Host Controller System Driver for Windows XP

≪ Previous: Remote Operation of PowerSDR Using TeamViewer

How to use the FM Repeater Mode

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	2.1.5
Applicable Hardware:	All FlexRadio Systems SDRs

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

With the release of PowerSDR v2.1.5, a repeater operation feature or "repeater mode" has been added that enhances the FM mode of operation. When operating FM, you now have the ability to select Simplex mode, where the RX and TX frequencies are the same, or you may select a positive (+) or negative (-) frequency offset that automatically enables the Repeater Mode. These controls are available from the main console when FM mode has been selected. See the area outlined in red in image below.

PowerSDR v2.1.3 Console in FM Mode

In the image above, you will notice in the red square the FM mode specific controls. The three buttons in a row labeled [-] [Simplex] [+] determines if the radio is operating in FM Repeater mode. The field above these controls, RPTR Offset (MHz) is where you enter the frequency offset for the particular band you are operating. In this example, the radio in in FM Repeater mode with a positive frequency offset of 0.600 MHz.

When transmitting in Repeater Mode, you will see the actual transmit frequency displayed in VFO-A, giving you a visual reference to what frequency you are transmitting on.

In this mode of operation there is no need to set SPLIT. If you do set SPLIT to ON, then PowerSDR it taken out of Repeater Mode, the Repeater Mode Offset is no longer being recognized and SPLIT is active, transmitting on the frequency shown in VFO-B.

NOTE: The Repeater Offset is not set automatically based on the receive frequency, so you must determine the whether or not the offset is positive or negative and the frequency of the offset.

For most cases, the offset band plan in the US for 2 meters follows these guidelines. Please verify that this band plan is applicable for the repeaters that you plan to work

The offset is ±600 KHz, the deviation is 5 KHz

At 145.000 through 146.999 MHz, as shown on the Panadapter while receiving,the transmit frequency is 600 KHz below the receive frequency; this is a negative offset.
At 147.000 MHz and above, as shown on the Panadapter while receiving, the transmit frequency is 600 KHz above the receive frequency; this is a positive offset.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

Updating the ohci1394.sys Firewire Host Controller System Driver for Windows XP

July 23, 2011, 10:53 pm

≫ Next: Different Antenna Configuration Modes for the FLEX-5000

≪ Previous: How to use the FM Repeater Mode

Updating the ohci1394.sys Firewire Host Controller System Driver for Windows XP

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

The ohci1394.sys is the Windows XP system device driver for OHCI (open host controller interface) compliant Firewire host controllers. This driver is the software interface between your Firewire hardware and the Windows XP operating system.

Microsoft has issued several updates that can only be installed using their "hotfix" process. Below are the URLs to the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles describing the problem or condition and where to get the updates to resolve the aforementioned issues.

WARNING!! - These updates can result in an unstable or inoperable system. FlexRadio Systems makes no guarantee or takes any responsibility for these hotfixes or any problems that may result if applied.

!!! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!

Performance of 1394 devices may decrease after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=885222 ohci1394.sys version: 5.1.2600.2549

Performance of 800 Mbit, 1394 devices may decrease after you install Windows XP Service Pack 3:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=955408 ohci1394.sys version: 5.1.2600.3311
This particularly important if your device is a 800 Mbit capable device, 400 Mbit speed will default to 100 Mbit instead.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

Different Antenna Configuration Modes for the FLEX-5000

July 27, 2011, 8:14 am

≫ Next: How to use the Memory Form

≪ Previous: Updating the ohci1394.sys Firewire Host Controller System Driver for Windows XP

Different Antenna Configuration Modes for the FLEX-5000

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.16.1
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

The FLEX-5000 provides the greatest FLEXibility in being able to configure the RF input and output signal paths in more ways than any other amateur radio. This article will describe some of the different antenna configurations that are possible with the FLEX-5000.

Before we begin our discussion, it is important to remember that the FLEX-5000 is a full duplex software defined radio. This means that the receiver and transmitter are independent of each other and do not share the same filtering components or RF signal paths. The same is true if the second receiver (RX2) is installed in the FLEX-5000. It too is fully independent of the transmitter and receiver circuitry as well, making the FLEX-5000 a true triplex software defined radio.

The FLEX-5000 contains a RF switching matrix called the HFRIO board. The primary function of this component is to route RF signals to the appropriate device for the operation being performed, such as transmitting, receiving or both at the same time. The PowerSDR Antenna Selection form is used to configure the HRFIO switching matrix by assigning different antenna ports to the transmitter and receivers.

There are several different configurations that are available for use with the FLEX-5000. By default, the FLEX-5000 uses the same transceiver port for both transmit and receive. You can also configure the FLEX-5000 to use a RX only receiving antenna that is separate from the transmit antenna.

One unique feature of the FLEX-5000 series of transceivers is that it allows one to easily insert a receive (RX) only device into the RF signal path of the primary receiver (RX1). This capability is referred to as the "RX Loop". When the radio is transmitting, the resulting RF output is not routed through the "RX loop" whereby protecting sensitive receive only devices such as preamps from damaging RF energy. Therefore there is no need for manual switching to take the external receive preamp out of the RF signal path when transmitting.

Since the FLEX-5000 becomes a triplex software defined radio once the RX2 (second receiver) is installed, you will have an additional configuration possibilities specifically for the RX2 that are independent of the RX1/TX and RX Loop configurations shown below. There is the standard RX2 receive only configuration which allows for diversity reception and when used with the HRFIO-34 (or above) board, you can also configure the RX2 in a SO2R mode where you can transmit on the same antenna connector where the RX2 is assigned.

PowerSDR 1.x Antenna Selection Form
The examples below will show how to configure the PowerSDR Antenna Selection form for different modes of operation. In the Antenna Selection form, you can choose two Complexity levels; Simple or Expert. The difference between the two is as follows.

Simple - The configuration you set is configured for ALL of the bands.
Expert - The configuration you set is configured ONLY for the band displayed.

This setting does not effect the examples below in any way except to determine which band the configuration is applied. Please be aware of this setting when setting your antenna configuration.

Standard Transceiver Antenna Configuration
In the standard transceiver operation mode RF signals are received and transmitted through the same transceiver antenna connector. There are three (3) of these Amphenol SO-239 ports on the FLEX-5000 and they are labeled ANT 1-3. Any one of these three can be selected for transceiver operation. The HRFIO board performs the switching between the ANT 1-3 ports, the receiver and transmitter. The RF signal path is depicted below in Figure 1.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign ANT-1 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to check the Lock box to ensure you are transmitting and receiving using the same antenna connector. See Figure 1 for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-1 for both receive and transmit.

Figure 1 - Standard Transceiver Mode

Separate RX and TX Antenna Mode of Operation
On the back panel of the FLEX-5000 there are two Amphenol BNC connectors labeled RX1 IN and RX1 OUT. These are multi-function ports depending on how you have them configured in the Antenna Selection setup form in PowerSDR. In the default mode the RX1 IN port can be used to connect a receive only antenna to the FLEX-5000's primary receiver, such as a small receiving loop or a beverage antenna. In this configuration the RX1 OUT connector is not utilized.

You are not restricted to using just the RX1 IN port for a receive only antenna. Since you can assign separate antennas independently to the receiver and the transmitter using any transceiver (ANT 1-3) connector that is not in use by the transmitter can be assigned to either receiver (if RX2 is installed). In this configuration, RF input is routed directly to the receiver via the RX1 IN or ANT1-3 port and the RF output is routed out to one of the three transceiver ports assigned to the transmitter. Refer to the RF signal path block diagram below in Figure 2 for an example of using RX1 IN for a receive only antenna.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign RX1 IN as the Receiver 1 antenna input and ANT-3 as the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to un-check the Lock box before making the changes because you are using separate transmit and receive antennas. See Figure 2 for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the RX1 IN for receive and the ANT-3 for transmit.

Figure 2 - Separate RX and TX Mode using RX1 IN

In the example below, the transceiver port ANT-2 is used exclusively for the receive only antenna and ANT-3 is being utilized for the transmit antenna.

Figure 2a - Separate RX and TX mode using ANT-x connectors.

RX Loop Mode of Operation
The RX Loop mode of operation can be used with either the standard transceiver or separate RX/TX mode of operation. When the RX Loop is enabled, the received signals ingress the FLEX-5000 through the antenna port assigned to the primary (RX1) receiver, such as ANT 1-3, but there is an additional RF signal path that is automatically switched in by the HRFIO board which sends the RX signal out of the RX1 OUT BNC connector and it must be fed back into the RX1 IN BCN connector before being sent to the receiver.

This allows you to connect the RX1 OUT connector to a preamp/filter INPUT and the preamp/filter OUTPUT to the RX1 IN connector for routing signals through the "loop" and then to the receiver. Refer to Figure 4 below for a representation of the RF signal path when using the RX Loop.

One additional option you will find useful when using the RX loop capabilities of the FLEX-5000 is the ability to compensate for the additional gain provided by an external preamp. Adding additional gain to the RF input will skew the RX signal strength reading shown by the Panadapter and on the S meter. If you know how much gain is provided by the external RX preamp you are using, you can enter it into the Gain adjustment field (box) so that you continue to have accurate signal strength readings.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign ANT-3 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to check the Lock box because the transmitter and receiver will be using the same antenna connector. To enable the RX Loop feature, check the box labeled Use RX1 Out to RX1 In Loop. See Figure 3 for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-3 for transmit/receive and the RX LOOP for routing the RX signal through an external preamp.

Figure 3 - RX Loop Mode of Operation Using the same Transceiver Antenna Connector

In the example below, ANT-2 is used as the receive only antenna input and ANT-3 is being utilized for the transmitter output with the RX Loop enabled. To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign ANT-2 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and ANT-3 as the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to un-check the Lock box because transmitter and receiver will not be using the same antenna. To enable the RX Loop feature, check the box labeled Use RX1 Out to RX1 In Loop. See figure 3a for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-3 for transmit/receive and the RX LOOP for routing the RX signal through an external preamp.

Figure 3a - RX Loop Mode of Operation Using a Different Transmit and Receive Antenna Connectors

NOTE: If you enable the Use RX1 Out to RX1 In Loop option in the Antenna Selection form and there is not an active device or a coax jumper that is routing the receive RF from the RX1 OUT to the RX1 IN ports, you will not receive any signals.

NOTE: The RX1 OUT BNC connector is only active in the RX signal path when the RX Loop feature is enabled.

RX2 Standard Antenna Configuration - Single RX Antenna
The RX2 is an independent fully functional second receiver option for the FLEX-5000. There are several different ways you can assign an antenna port to the RX2.

CAUTION: When transmitting with a separate receive only antenna connected to the RX2, the RX2 is not muted or switched out of the RF signal path. Although the RX2 has a very stout front end, you must take care that you do not overload the RX2 with excessive RF energy which can damage the receiver. Decoupling the receive only antenna when transmitting is highly recommended especially in high RF environments. This condition is applicable for any of the antenna configurations that the RX2 uses, such as when using the RX2 IN and the RX1 IN + RX1 TAP configurations. The RX2 Mute software configuration option is muting only the audio output from the RX2 and not actually turning the RX2 off during transmit. The RX2 is always on no matter what settings are used.

If you do not have a separate receiving antenna for the RX2, the simplest way to utilize the RX2 is the "share" the same antenna that is assigned to RX1 by selecting the RX1 TAP antenna selection. On the HRFIO board, this is accomplished by using a splitter and a preamp or buffer amp to compensate for any induced losses. Using this configuration will allow you to listen to other frequencies on the same band that might exceed the sampling rate reception bandwidth window or to listen to other bands if your antenna is sufficiently multiple band capable. This configuration provides only limited diversity reception capabilities for AM and DSB signals. The RF signal path for this configuration is as depicted below in Figure 4.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign RX1 Tap as the Receiver 1 antenna input and ANT-2 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to check the Lock box to ensure you are transmitting and receiving using the same antenna connector. See Figure 4 for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-2 for both receive and transmit and the RX1 TAP for the RX2.

Figure 4 - RX2 using the RX1 TAP Antenna Assignment

RX2 Standard Antenna Configuration - Dedicated RX2 Antenna
If you do have a separate receiving antenna for the RX2, then it should be connected to the dedicated RX2 IN BNC connector and configured the same as using the RX1 TAP in the previous example except you assign RX2 IN as the Receiver 2 antenna connector.

Using this configuration will allow you to listen to other frequencies on the same band or to listen to other bands the same as if you were using the single RX antenna configuration listed above, but you have the additional capability for enhanced diversity reception. Using this configuration will allow you to experiment with different diversity reception techniques depending on your antenna configuration to enhance reception by mitigating the effects of fading and to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio.

NOTE: The RX2 antenna configurations are independent of the RX1/TX configurations listed above. You can have any of the configurations listed above as long is there is not a conflict with the association of an antenna port to an RF device (RX1/RX2 or TX).

The following configuration example is going to be a little more complex since we are going to combine using separate antennas for the primary receiver (RX1) and the transmitter, add the RX Loop feature and have a separate receive only antenna for the RX2 to allow for diversity reception. The following The RF signal path for this configuration is depicted below in Figure 4a.

In the example below, ANT-2 is used as a receive only antenna connector for RX1 and ANT-3 is being utilized for the transmit antenna connector with the RX Loop enabled. Additionally, the RX2 IN antenna connector is being assigned to the RX2 for diversity reception capabilities.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign RX2 IN as the Receiver 2 antenna input, ANT-2 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and ANT-3 as the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to un-check the Lock box because transmitter and receiver will not be using the same antenna. To enable the RX Loop feature, check the box labeled Use RX1 Out to RX1 In Loop. See figure 4a for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-3 for transmit, ANT-2 for receive and the RX LOOP for routing the RX signal through an external preamp with a separate RX2 antenna connected to the RX2 IN antenna input.

Figure 4a - RX2 Diversity Reception Configuration with Separate RX1 and TX Antennas with the RX Loop Feature Enabled.

RX2 SO2R Antenna Configuration
The FLEX-5000 allows you to operate as SO2R with a single radio. This is another first in ham radio for FlexRadio Systems. In order to facilitate a SO2R configuration, you must be able to transmit on either the primary RX1 frequency or the RX2 frequency. This means that the second receiver (RX2) must be able to be assigned to a transceiver antenna port as opposed to a receive only antenna input. This capability exist in the FLEX-5000 only if the HRFIO-34 (or greater) RF switching matrix board is installed in your radio. If your FLEX-5000 has the HRFIO-34 board installed, you can assign the RX2 to ANT-1, a transceiver port. With this configuration, you have the option of transmitting on the same frequency as the RX2 on ANT-1 or transmitting on the RX1 frequency with either ANT-2 or ANT-3.

Building on the example directly above, we will modify the configuration so that the RX2 uses ANT-1 rather than the dedicated receive only RX1 IN antenna port.

In this example, ANT-2 is used as a receive only antenna connector for RX1 and ANT-3 is being utilized for the transmit antenna connector with the RX Loop enabled. Additionally, the ANT-1 transceiver antenna connector is being assigned to the RX2 for SO2R and/or diversity reception capabilities.

To enable this configuration, open the Antenna Selection form in PowerSDR and assign ANT-1 as the Receiver 2 antenna input, ANT-2 as the Receiver 1 antenna input and ANT-3 as the Transmit output using the antenna selection drop down box. Make sure to un-check the Lock box because transmitter and receiver will not be using the same antenna. To enable the RX Loop feature, check the box labeled Use RX1 Out to RX1 In Loop. See Figure 5 for an example of how PowerSDR is configured to use the ANT-3 for transmit, ANT-2 for receive on the primary receiver and the RX LOOP for routing the RX signal through an external preamp with a separate RX2 antenna on the ANT-1 transceiver antenna connector.

Figure 5 - RX2 SO2R/Diversity Reception Configuration with Separate RX1 and TX Antennas with the RX Loop Feature Enabled.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

How to use the Memory Form

August 15, 2011, 1:52 am

≫ Next: How to Install or Upgrade the FLEX Firewire Driver

≪ Previous: Different Antenna Configuration Modes for the FLEX-5000

How to Use the Memory Form

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	2.1.5
Applicable Hardware:	All FlexRadio Systems SDRs

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

An enhanced Memory form that incorporates new features and supports the new FM Repeater mode of operation is available with PowerSDR v2.1.5. The new Memory form (or window) is designed primarily for FM mode, but can be used with any mode. A representative screen shot of a populated Memory form is shown below.

PowerSDR Enhanced Memory Form
(Click on the image to display a higher resolution version)

As you see, each memory form record consists of different data fields. The table below describes each memory channel field in the memory channel entry.

Memory Form Field Description
Group	This is a "free form" field that you can categorize memories based on user defined group name
RX Frequency	This is the receiver frequency for VFO-A
Name	This is the name of the memory that is displayed in the Channel drop down box on the console when in FM mode
DSP Mode	This defines the Mode of operation for the memory entry. All PowerSDR modes are valid and selectable using the drop down box
Tune Step	This defines the Tune Step value for the memory entry. All PowerSDR Tune Step values are valid and selectable using the drop down box
RPTR (Repeater mode)	This determines if the radio is operating in simplex or Repeater mode. High, Low and Simplex values are valid and selectable using the drop down box
RPTR Offset	This defines the Repeater offset frequency in MHz. Valid only in FM mode
CTCSS	This check box determines if a CTCSS tone is added when transmitting. Valid only in FM mode
CTCSS Freq	This defines the CTCSS frequency or sub-audible tone in Hz transmitted. Valid only in FM mode
Deviation	This determines the transmit frequency deviation selectable using the drop down box. Valid only in FM mode
Power	This determines the transmit power in watts. Valid values are 0-100
Split	This determines if the radio is in SPLIT mode. If this option is selected, the radio is automatically taken out of Repeater mode and put into SIMPLEX mode. Refer to the KB article How to Use FM Repeater Mode for additional information.
TX Frequency	This defines the transmit frequency. It is a user defined value that is valid only in the simplex mode of operation. The default value is the RX frequency unless you are copying data from VFO-A to memory when the radio is in Split mode and the TX frequency is different than the RX frequency
RX Filter	This determines the defined RX filter specific for the DSP mode. NONE is the only valid option for FM mode
RX Filter Low	This displays the RX filter low cut point. It does not define the RX filter low cut value in FM mode
RX Filter High	This displays the RX filter high cut point. It does not define the RX filter high cut value in FM mode
Comments	This is a "free form" field that you can add comments specific to the memory channel
AGC Mode	This defines the AGC setting. The AGC setting is selectable using the drop down box
AGC-T	This determines the AGC Threshold for the memory channel. Valid values are 0-100

Getting Started with Using Memory Channels

To open the Memory form, select Memory from the PowerSDR menu bar.

There are several operations that can be performed to add, delete, manage and select a memory (or memory channel). The following sections will describe these operations in greater detail.

How to Add a Memory Channel

Adding a memory channel to the Memory database is easy. It will take the currently configured parameters on the PowerSDR console and store them as a memory channel "record" that can be recalled later.

Open the Memory Form from the PowerSDR menu bar by left clicking on it
Left click on the ADD button at the bottom of the Memory form
A new memory channel will be added to the memory form at the bottom.
At this point you can customize or change values in the new memory channel. Changes you make to the memory channel record are automatically saved to the database so there is no need to do anything to save the changes

Adding a Memory Channel
(Click on the image to display a higher resolution version)

How to Select a memory Channel form the Memory Channel Form

Once you have created a memory channel using the ADD feature, you can recall or Select the memory channel which is change the PowerSDR operating mode to the parameters defined in the memory channel. There are two ways to select a memory channel from the Memory database. You can select the memory channel directly from the Memory form or you can select the memory channel from the PowerSDR console when operating in FM mode. This example selects the memory channel from the Memory form.

Open the Memory Form from the PowerSDR menu bar by left clicking on it
Left click on the SELECT button at the bottom of the Memory form
The information in the memory channel will be transferred to the PowerSDR console

Selecting a Memory Channel from the Memory Form
(Click on the image to display a higher resolution version)

How to Select a Memory Channel from the PowerSDR Console

As noted above, there are two ways to select a memory channel. The following example demonstrates the second way of selecting a memory channel by using the option in the PowerSDR console when operating in FM mode.

From the PowerSDR console, select the FM mode
In the FM mode specific control area on the console left click on the Channel drop down box
A listing of all memory channels will be displayed (see screenshot below).
Left click on the memory of your choice. In the example below the SkyWarn memory channel is being selected.
The information in the memory channel will be transferred to the PowerSDR console

Selecting a Memory Channel from the PowerSDR console

(Click on the image to display a higher resolution version)

How to Copy a Memory Channel

If you want to make a copy of an existing memory channel to use as a starting point or template for creating a new memory channel, you do this by executing the following procedure.

Open the Memory Form from the PowerSDR menu bar by left clicking on it
Using your mouse, left click on the far left hand side of the memory channel you want to use as the source information. The memory record will highlight and there will be a right pointing triangle in the far left hand side indicating that the memory channel has been selected.
Left click on the COPY button at the bottom of the Memory form
A new memory channel will be added to the memory form at the bottom.
At this point you can change values in the new memory channel to create a new unique memory channel. Changes you make to the memory channel record are automatically saved to the database so there is no need to do anything to save the changes.

How to Sort Memory Channels

You can change the sort order of the memory channels by simply clicking on the column header.

Left clicking on the memory column header once will display asmall upward pointing triangle indicating that the column is sorted inascending order from top to bottom. Left clicking on the column header again willdisplay a small downward pointing triangle indicating that the column issorted in descending order from top to bottom.

How to Delete a Memory Channel

You can delete unwanted or un-needed memory channels by using the Delete feature in the Memory form.

Open the Memory Form from the PowerSDR menu bar by left clicking on it
Using your mouse, left click on the far left hand side of the memory channel you want to delete. The memory record will highlight and there will be a right pointing triangle in the far left hand side indicating that the memory channel has been selected.
Left click on the DELETE button at the bottom of the Memory form
A confirmation dialog box will appear asking you "Are you sure you want to remove the selected row(s)?". Left click on YES to delete or NO to abort this operation
If you clicked YES, the memory channel was removed from the Memory database.

Modifying Data in a Memory Channel

Once you have a memory channel defined, you can change any of the data fields on the memory channel record. Note that if you change the value of one field, that it does not necessarily update other fields in the memory channel record. As an example, if you change from Simplex to Repeater mode with a positive 0.600 MHz offset, the TX Frequency is not updated to reflect a TX frequency that is 0.600 MHz greater than the RX Frequency.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

How to Install or Upgrade the FLEX Firewire Driver

August 26, 2011, 7:50 pm

≫ Next: FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000 EEPROM / Firewire Diagnostic Tool

≪ Previous: How to use the Memory Form

How to Install or Upgrade the FLEX Firewire Driver

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.10.0
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

UPDATE: This procedure is no longer necessary when using PowerSDR 2.0.22 and above as the Firewire driver installer is integrated into the PowerSDR installer.

The FLEX family of Firewire-based software defined radios communicates with your personal computer running Windows XP, Vista or Windows7 via a Firewire (IEEE-1394) connection. Like any piece of hardware that communicates with Windows, a hardware or device driver is required. The Firewire enabled FLEX family of software defined radios is no exception. Before starting this procedure, you will need to download the current version of the FLEX Firewire driver to the computer that is connected to the SDR hardware. You can obtain the latest FLEX-5000/3000 Firewire driver from a link on the FlexRadio Systems home page.

NOTE: The FLEX software defined radio *MUST* be completely turned off or disconnected from your computer before starting this procedure. You will be instructed when to connect or turn on your FLEX software defined radio in the procedure below.

NOTE: The FLEX Firewire driver, version 3.4.0.x and above the driver installed package contains both a 32-bit and a digitally signed 64-bit kernel mode device driver, therefore the FLEX Firewire driver will work with *all* versions of 64-bit Windows without requiring any special operating modes, such as disabling the Windows x64 driver signing requirement.

REQUIREMENT: All hardware or device drivers, including the FLEX Firewire driver, must be installed with user rights of administrator under Windows. Not all user accounts have these elevated rights, especially the defaualt accountes in Vista and Windows7. If you install the FLEX Firewire driver on these operating systems and you are not absolutely certain that your login account has the required elevated rights to properly install the driver, then you need to use a feature of these operating systems to install or run a program with full administrator rights.

To do this, right click on the FLEX Firewire installed program and select the option "Run as Administrator". If your user login does not have sufficient rights, you will be prompted to provide user credentials (password) for the administrator account to continue installing the FLEX Firewire driver. For Windows operating systems with UAC (User Account Control) enabled, make sure you answer affirmatively (Yes) for any and all prompts during driver installation.

Upgrading the FLEX Firewire Driver
If you are upgrading to a new version of the FLEX Firewire driver, you must follow the procedure outlined below in order to make sure that the old driver is completely removed from your system before the new updated driver will install properly.

Step 1. Turn off the FLEX software defined radio hardware by powering it down completely.

Step 2. Uninstall the existing FLEX Firewire driver. The driver can be uninstalled using the uninstall menu option in the FlexRadio Systems application folder or by using the Add or Remove Programs option in the Windows Control Panel. Make sure the FLEX software defined radio is turned off along with PowerSDR before uninstalling the Firewire driver.

Step 3. Reboot your computer. This assures that the drivers are completely removed from memory.

Step 4. Follow the procedure, Installing the FLEX Firewire Driver below for installing the new Firewire device driver.

Installing the FLEX FireWire Driver - For Windows XP, Vista & Win7
The directions below will instruct you how to properly install the FLEX Firewire driver for the Firewire-based FLEX software defined radios. The screen shots used in the procedure are from a Windows XP operating system. The screens will look a little bit different when installing on Windows Vista and Win7 due to the way Vista and Win7 renders dialog boxes, but the window content is identical. Also, the FLEX Firewire driver version numbers will be a bit different too.

Step 1. After downloading both PowerSDR and the FLEX FireWire driver to your computer from the FlexRadio Web site (you can get the driver from the FlexRadio Systems home page), install or load the FLEX FireWire device driver software to your computer first. Once the FLEX FireWire device driver is fully installed, then you will enable it by powering up the FLEX software defined radio.

Before we start, it is always a best practice to to close down any running applications before installing any type of hardware device driver. Open applications may inadvertently interfere with the proper installation of the Firewire device driver.

NOTE: The FLEX software defined radio *MUST* be completely turned off or disconnected from your computer before starting this procedure. You will be instructed when to connect or turn on your FLEX software defined radio in the procedure below.

Open up the folder where you downloaded the FLEX FireWire driver. Either double left click or right click on the FLEX Firewire driver installation icon and select Run as Administrator to start the driver installation.

Step 2. After the FLEX Firewire driver Setup Wizard is displayed, left click on NEXT to begin the driver installation.

Step 3. After clicking the NEXT button, the Select Destination Location screen is displayed. It is recommended that you use the default location of C:\Program Files\FlexRadio. Left click on NEXT to continue.

Step 4. After clicking the NEXT button, the Select Additional Tasks screen is displayed. If you do not want the FLEX Firewire Control Panel icon on your desktop, un-check the “Create a desktop icon” option. It is highly recommended that you place a FLEX Firewire Control Panel icon on your desktop. You will use this control panel to manage your software defined radio. Left click on NEXT to continue.

Step 5. After clicking the NEXT button, the Ready to Install screen is displayed. Verify that the options selected in the previous two steps are correct. If not, left click on the BACK button to change any of the incorrect options. Left click on NEXT to continue.

Step 6. After clicking the NEXT button, the Installing screen will be displayed. A Software Installation warning may also appear (if not, skip to Step 7). This warning is displayed because the hardware driver has not passed the formalized Windows Logo Testing program, which is not an issue as most hardware drivers are not Windows Logo certified. The FLEX Firewire driver has been extensively tested and will not destabilize or impair your system. Left click on Continue Anyway to proceed.

Step 7. After the file transfer is complete, the Completing the FlexRadio Setup Wizard screen will be displayed and you will be prompted to reboot your computer. Please select the option, Yes, to restart the computer now.

Before left clicking on the FINISH button, make sure that your FLEX Firewire-based software defined radio is powered off. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. You must complete the driver installation before powering on the FLEX software defined radio.

Once you have verified that the FLEX software defined radio is not powered on left click on the FINISH button to reboot the computer.

Step 8. After your computer has completely rebooted, power on your FLEX software defined radio by pressing the power button.

Windows Vista and Win7 Installation Procedure Deviation: Windows Vista and Win7 performs Steps 8 - 13 without any user intervention or displaying installation status dialog boxes. If you are installing on Windows Vista or Win7, skip to Step 14.

The following steps are applicable to Windows XP only:

The Found New Hardware Wizard dialog box is displayed once Windows XP discovers that the FLEX software defined radio, a new piece of hardware, has been connected. Select the option, No, not this time when you are prompted to use Windows Update to search for software. Left click on the NEXT button once you have made the proper selection to continue.

Step 9. The Found New Hardware Wizard will recognize that you are trying to install a FlexRadio FLEX software defined radio. Depending on the model of radio attached to your computer, the driver will properly identify the specific FLEX software defined radio you are installing. In the example above, the radio is a FLEX-5000. Select the option, Install the software automatically (Recommended), and left click on the NEXT button once you have made the proper selection to continue.

Step 10. After clicking the NEXT button, the Found New Hardware Wizard screen will be displayed momentarily.

Then a Hardware Installation warning may be shown. This warning, like the one in Step 6 is displayed because the hardware driver has not passed the formalized Windows Logo Testing program. Left click on Continue Anyway to proceed.

Step 11. After clicking the Continue Anyway button, you will observe the driver files being installed. See the screen below.

Step 12. After the driver files are installed you will see the Completing the Found New Hardware Wizard dialog box to indicate that the wizard has finished installing the software for the FlexRadio FLEX software defined radio. Left click on the FINISH button to continue.

Step 13. The FlexRadio Systems FLEX Firewire driver has three (3) sub-driver components. The first sub driver, the FlexRadio Systems FLEX-xxxx core driver component was just installed in steps 8 - 12. There are two additional sub-driver components that must installed to complete the driver installation process.

NOTE: After the FlexRadio Systems FLEX-x000 core driver component completes, repeat steps 8 - 12 for the two (2) FlexRadio MIDI drivers. You will install a total of three (3) sub-driver components. Do NOT stop installing the FLEX Firewire sub-drivers until all have been loaded.

After all of the sub-drivers have been properly installed, You should see a prompt in the bottom right had corner of your display that indicates that your new hardware is ready to use.

Step 14. The last step is to verify that the FLEX software defined radio is properly communicating with your computer. During Step 4, you should have instructed the driver installer program to place a FLEX Firewire icon on your desktop.

The FLEX Firewire Console icon may or may not look like the icon pictured to the left depending on your driver version, but will have the label "FlexRadio".

Double click on the FlexRadio icon to display the FLEX Firewire Control Panel. If the driver was properly installed, you will see the name of your FlexRadio Systems FLEX software defined radio in the Device Description text box. If the driver is not installed properly or the FLEX software defined radio is either not connected or turned off, you will receive a Device Not Found error message when you start the FLEX software defined radio.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

↧

FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000 EEPROM / Firewire Diagnostic Tool

September 19, 2011, 1:36 am

≫ Next: How to Suggest Enhancements for future versions of PowerSDR

≪ Previous: How to Install or Upgrade the FLEX Firewire Driver

FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000 EEPROM / Firewire Diagnostic Tool

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

The Windows executable available for download below is a diagnostic tool that can be used to verify that your FLEX-5000 / FLEX-3000 Firewire device driver is loaded properly and you computer is properly communicating with the FLEX-5000/3000 transceiver. There are two procedures documented here

Reading EEPROM Data From the FLEX-5000 or FLEX-3000
Exporting EEPROM Data to a CSV File

CAUTION: There is also an IMPORT function for importing data from a CSV file into your EEPROM. Do not use this feature unless you are 100% certain that the data you are importing is compatible with your radio or explicitly instructed to do so by the FlexRadio Development Team. Importing invalid data could possibly lead to EEPROM data corruption that can only be remedied by sending in your radio to the Service and Repair Department for repair. Correcting this problem would not normally be covered under warranty repair. CAVEAT UTILITOR!

Reading EEPROM Data From the FLEX-5000

To use the FLEX-x000_EEPROM_Tool to read EEPROM data, use the following instructions:

Download the FLEX-x000_EEPROM_Tool.exe file from the FlexRadio web site (See associated links below)
Turn on the FLEX-5000 or FLEX-3000
Double left click on the executable file, FLEX-x000_EEPROM_Tool.exe
Select the proper model of SDR in the upper left hand box
Then click on the READ button to query the EEPROM data.

If your computer is properly communicating with the FLEX-5000/3000, then a screen will be displayed showing the current SDR model, and the serial number and revision numbers for installed hardware components (uninstalled hardware will be grayed out):

Transceiver Board (HTRX)
Antenna Tuning Unit (ATU)
Second Receiver (RX2)
Power Amplified (HPA)
Radio Frequency I/O (RFIO)
2 meter transverter (XVTR)

If your computer is not properly communicating with the SDR hardware, then an error screen will be displayed like the one shown below.

Exporting EEPROM Data to a CSV File

To use the FLEX-5000_EEPROM_Reader to export EEPROM data, use the following instructions:

Download the FLEX-5000_EEPROM_Tool.zip file from the FlexRadio web site (See associated links below)
Turn on the FLEX-5000 or FLEX-3000
Double left click on the extracted file, FLEX-5000_EEPROM_Tool.exe
Select the proper model of FLEX-5000 in the upper left hand box
Then click on the EXPORT button to query the EEPROM data.
The button will turn RED and the application will loose focus (grayed out) while the EEPROM data is being read and the CSV (comma separated values) file for 45-60 seconds.
When complete the EXPORT button will revert back to the original color and the program will come back into focus.
Once completed, there will be a CSV file in the folder from which you ran the program. It will have a file name like xxxx-xxxx.csv where xxxx-xxxx is the radio's serial number.

The file will have a series of hexadecimal values written out. This file can be used by FlexRadio Software Development Team to diagnose possible EEPROM data integrity issues.

KB Source Document(s):

FLEX-x000 EEPROM Tool

↧

How to Suggest Enhancements for future versions of PowerSDR

October 31, 2011, 8:49 pm

≫ Next: CWSkimmer Multi-channel CW Decoder and Analyzer

≪ Previous: FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000 EEPROM / Firewire Diagnostic Tool

How to Suggest Enhancements for future versions of PowerSDR

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: FlexRadio Systems Engineering

We strongly encourage users of FlexRadio products to make suggestions for product enhancement; no matter how crazy they may seem. This is how we get the ideas to improve our products.

Recently we deployed the FlexRadio HelpDesk (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com), which is a web based incident ticketing and tracking system that allows our support staff to service requests for technical assistance in a more user interactive and efficient manner. Submitting a FlexRadio HelpDesk Enhancement Request ticket is now the way you can make product enhancement suggestions by accessing the FlexRadio HelpDesk and selecting a Ticket Type of "Enhancement Request".

If you are a first time user of the FlexRadio HelpDesk , then you must create a login for yourself so that we can properly receive your correspondences via e-mail. Just click on the Sign Up link (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com/registration) in the top right hand corner of the page to get started.

When creating your HelpDesk account, please include your full name, a valid non-redirected e-mail address (alias e-mail accounts like callsign@arrl.net will not work), enter the security words in the appropriate box and then click on the Sign Me Up button. Once you complete creating your HelpDesk account, a confirmation e-mail will be sent to you to validate your account. It is import that you reply back promptly so we can verify your e-mail account. Failure to do this will result in delays getting feedback from FlexRadio.

If you are a previous user of the FlexRadio HelpDesk, just login using the Login link (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com/login) at the top right hand corner of the FlexRadio HelpDesk web page before submitting your HelpDesk request for support.

As with any product enhancement suggestion, please add an informative, but short description of your issue in the Subject line. Provide a more comprehensive description of your product enhancement suggestion by providing a detailed description of what it is in the Description dialog box. The more detailed information you can provide the better we can understand what you are suggesting and evaluate its viability for doing it. Please do not list several different product enhancement suggestions in one HelpDesk ticket. This will result in the technical support engineer having to divide out the different issues into separate HelpDesk tickets, causing additional delays getting your product enhancement suggestion evaluated.

Once your FlexRadio HelpDesk product enhancement suggestion has been submitted, you will receive a confirmation e-mail after it has been forwarded to the Product Management Group for evaluation. The Product Management group will post your product enhancement suggestion on the HelpDesk Assistance Center's Feature Request listing for user ranking and comments. We actively use this information for evaluating the viability of the product enhancement suggestion.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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CWSkimmer Multi-channel CW Decoder and Analyzer

February 21, 2013, 7:27 am

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CWSkimmer Multi-channel CW Decoder and Analyzer

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by: Alex, VE3NEA

CWSkimmer is a multi-channel CW decoder and analyzer for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP that can use direct I/Q data streams from PowerSDR for wide band decoding. CWSkimmer can be downloaded from the Afreet Software, Inc. web site

Some of CWSkimmer's features are:

A very sensitive CW decoding algorithm based on the methods of Bayesian statistics
Simultaneous decoding of ALL cw signals in the receiver passband - up to 700 signals can be decoded in parallel on a 3-GHz P4 if a wideband receiver is used
A fast waterfall display, with a resolution sufficient for reading Morse Code dots and dashes visually
The callsigns are extracted from the decoded messages, and the traces on the waterfall are labeled with stations' callsigns
The extracted callsigns are exported as DX cluster spots via the built-in Telnet cluster server
A DSP processor with a noise blanker, AGC, and a sharp, variable-bandwidth CW filter
An I/Q Recorder and player.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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CWSkimmer Configuration Without Using Direct I/Q for the SDR-1000

February 21, 2013, 7:29 am

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CWSkimmer Configuration Without Using Direct I/Q for the SDR-1000

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.10.0
Applicable Hardware:	SDR-1000

Content provided by: Mark, MØMRR (web page)

CWSkimmer is a neat little program that decodes multiple cw signals all at the same time. This is my particular information relating to setting up CWSkimmer to work with my SDR-1000 and Edirol FA-66 soundcard.

Prerequisites:

PowerSDR and the SDR-1000 must already be setup to operate CW with either a key or using the CWX (keyboard) form to send CW.
A virtual com port (Com0Com or vCom) must be setup for CAT control.
The CAT parameters must be setup in PowerSDR (port, baud rate, and number of stop, data and parity bits)

The program can be downloaded from Afreet Software and has a 30 day trial period after which it must be purchased for a nominal fee. Installation of the program is straightforward by following the prompts.

Figure 1

You can see the PowerSDR program in CWU mode with standard settings (VAC is NOT enabled)

Figure 2 Figure 3

For the Audio settings (Figure 2), I selected:

Signal I/O = Edirol FA-66 In 2
Audio I/O = Edirol FA-66 Out 1 (not applicable, but it needed a selection)
Left/Right = Q/I

For the Radio Settings (Figure 3), I selected:

Hardware Type = SoftRock-IF
Audio IF = 9600,
Sampling Rate = 96kHz (same sampling rate as the FA-66),
CW Pitch = 600 (same as the Pitch frequency in PowerSDR CW Mode Controls - see Figure 1)

Figure 4 Figure 5

Default settings for CAT control set up to match the CAT configuration in PowerSDR for the virtual com port data parameters

Here are a few stations being decoded at the same time - what a neat little program!

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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K9DUR PowerSDR Data Transfer 4.x Utility

April 14, 2013, 10:10 pm

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K9DUR PowerSDR Data Transfer 5.x Utility

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	Any Version
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by:Ray, K9DUR

The SDRDataTransfer v5.x Utility is an advanced database management program that allows you to transfer data from one PowerSDR™ setup database to another. Certain data in the PowerSDR setup database should never be transferred to another database. In some cases, the decision as to whether it is safe to transfer the data or not can be determined by which table the data is stored in. However, a couple of the tables have a mixture of data that is safe to transfer and data that is not. Unfortunately, this includes some of the more popular custom settings that are rather tedious to re-enter by hand when moving to a new database. The filter settings are just one example. SDRDataTransfer decides which tables and which records within each table can be safely transferred based on information stored in a setup database, SDRDataTransfer.mdb. Optionally, v5.x allows you to select only certain types of settings to be transferred. For example, you could choose to transfer only your filter settings, or your filter settings & VAC settings.

Version 5.x of the SDR Data Transfer Utility allows the transfer of settings between both types of databases used by PowerSDR. PowerSDR v1.18.0 and earlier used a Microsoft Access database file named PowerSDR.mdb. Starting with v1.18.1, PowerSDR uses an XML file named database.xml to hold the setup data. SDRDataTransfer v2.x allows all 4 types of data transfer: .mdb -> .mdb, .xml -> .xml, .mdb -> .xml, & .xml -> .mdb.

As newer versions of PowerSDR are released, all that is necessary is to update the SDRDataTransfer.mdb file with the new data. If a new version of PowerSDR is released with new features, SDRDataTransfer will still work, but the settings for the new features will not be transferred until an updated version of the SDRDataTransfer.mdb file is installed.

This program replaces the PowerSDR 1.x Database Transfer Utility which only transferred data between Microsoft Access databases.

NOTE: This program requires the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 3.5 SP1 which must be downloaded & installed separately. You may download the installation package directly from Microsoft or from this website. The file is about 237 Mb in size. If you already have PowerSDR v1.18.1 or later installed and working (or any other software that requires Version 3.5 of the .NET Framework) , then you do not have to download & install the .NET Framework again.

You can download the installation package and the user documentation from the Related Links listed below.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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Operating Multiple FLEX-x000 SDRs From the Same Computer Simultaneously

October 11, 2016, 7:59 pm

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Operating Multiple FLEX-x000 SDRs From the Same Computer Simultaneously

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	1.16.0
Applicable Hardware:	FLEX-5000 & FLEX-3000

Content provided by:FlexRadio Systems Engineering

Question:
Can multiple FLEX-x000 SDRs (FLEX-5000 and/or FLEX-3000) be operated at the same time using the same computer?

Answer:
No,this is not possible. Even though the FLEX-5000 and FLEX-3000 use the same Firewire device driver and multiple Firewire devices are allowed to be connected to the same computer, the necessary logic to enable a particular version of PowerSDR 1.x to differentiate between the two different Firewire based software defined radios has not been added.

The first FLEX-x000 SDR to enumerate the Firewire bus will be the one that PowerSDR recognizes and uses. If you start multiple instances of PowerSDR, both instances of PowerSDR will use same transceiver; the one enumerated first.

The correct procedure for using two different Firewire based FLEX-x000 SDRs connected to the same computer is to completely shut down both SDRs and wait for a few seconds. The power up the radio you want to use and allow for Windows to properly recognize the SDR. Then start PowerSDR. If you want to use the other radio, shut down PowerSDR and turn off the radio. Wait several seconds and then power up the other radio and wait for a few seconds. Then start PowerSDR.

It is possible to operate a FLEX-1500 and either a FLEX-5000 or a FLEX-3000 at the same time on the same computer.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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How to use the Knowledge Center - Using RSS Feeds

May 28, 2018, 7:52 am

≪ Previous: Operating Multiple FLEX-x000 SDRs From the Same Computer Simultaneously

How to use the Knowledge Center - Using RSS Feeds

System Dependencies
Minimum PowerSDR Version:	N/A
Applicable Hardware:	N/A

Content provided by:FlexRadio Systems Information Management Team

RSS (Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)) is a XML format for delivering regularly changing web based content to a user by utilizing a RSS "reader" (aka "feed reader" and "aggregator") to automatically query the web site that has RSS capabilities (aka "a feed") and download new content for you with little to no intervention. RSS is a convenience for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in and saves time by not needing to visit each site individually.

The FlexRadio Systems Knowledge Center has RSS 2.0 capabilities to syndicate content. This is indicated by the RSS logo

found in the article listings headers for various KC information zones, such as the latest KB articles.

There are several levels of granularity for RSS feeds you can subscribe to depending on the amount of information you want to receive. Along with the article listings headers for various KC information zones, you can also subscribe to individual articles by using the RSS logo icon on the right hand side of each article.

Now that you know where to access the RSS feeds in the Knowledge Center, you will need an RSS reader to subscribe to them. A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

Setup the RSS feeder of your choice as per the program's installation instructions and then add the RSS syndicated content from the Knowledge Center you want to download. Literally it is that easy.

Note: The FlexRadio Forums also have RSS 2.0 syndication capabilities so you can collect content from the Forums as well.

KB Source Document(s):

None Referenced

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