Good by Junior, Hello Buddy.

I have not been blogging much lately because I have been doing a lot of hardware testing of the FLEX-3000 along with writing a rig.xml file to use PowerSDR (the "software" part of a software defined radio). Last week was very busy and good week in the test department. As with any beta testing, you are going to find or shake out bugs or make improvements in the product and that is what I have been doing. It really is not that important what those specific issues were as long as they get identified and incorporated into the production units before they get shipped.

The modifications to the FLEX-3000 hardware have been done for the production units, but Junior, who was a pre-production (beta) unit, does not have those improvements. As a result of those changes, Junior was no longer able to transmit more than about 5 watts out, which curtailed my on air activities the middle of last week. Junior need some hardware changes to make him whole again.

So, as sad as it may be, Junior is going back home to Austin. I knew when I got him that, that our time together would be short, but I was not expecting it to be less than two weeks. I will pack him up tomorrow and ship him back but not before I receive "Buddy" (the replacement FLEX-3000) later this afternoon.

Buddy is on the truck and I will have him on the air later this afternoon, probably doing some digital modes with Fldigi to test out the rig control file I created last weekend.

I'll post a notice when I will be QRV