I'm Back....

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know, I know.....

I fell off the face of the earth, but I'm back again. Since April, I have been in ultra busy mode with my day job that left little time for playing radio. The software gurus kicked it into gear this summer with a boat load of new enhancements for PowerSDR and my focus shifted to testing these new enhancements that are slowly finding there way into PowerSDR. There is a "mother of all releases" coming for later this fall where PowerSDR is going to get a face lift along with a lot of new core features such as Wide Band Image Rejection (WBIR), "real" diversity reception that allows you to null in band interference or enhance reception by changing the phase and gain of a second signal (requires a FLEX-5000+RX2) and polyphase down sampling. This new version will be based on a more recent IDE (VS2008) and will be know as PowerSDR 2.0. Since I have provide a lot of the web-based documentation for FlexRadio products, I have been REALLY busy in my spare time getting ready for all this new stuff coming down the pike.

From the FLEX-3000 perspective, I finally returned my beta unit for a production ready unit. It was sent to me at the end of August. If you have been following the FlexRadio reflector, you may have seen the announcement regarding a preamp enhancement for the FLEX-3000. Well mine shipped to me the day BEFORE the test results came back from the lab about the change, so I received one of the very last FLEX-3000s that had the original preamp configuration. The change greatly improves the IP2 of the radio and slightly improves the IMD DR3 of the radio too. I did not experience any adverse affect of the lower IP2 performance since I do not have any near by strong stations, but I did want to get the update. So I requested a RMA number and sent it back to Austin. It should be back next week.

When it returns, it will fit right into its operating position. I have finished the rewiring of the shack, which revolved around removing the Icoms from the primary operating positions and taking a well deserved back up role as "spare radios". I have the audio wiring worked out so that I can use the PR-40 with both the FLEX-5000 and the FLEX-3000 by simply switching a cable in the balanced line isolator. I am considering a headset that has a nice wide range element, but the jury is still out on that.

I hope to do better with updates as the new PowerSDR 2.0 starts to take shape. Stay tuned....