Well, I think what you will see if you look at it running Power SDR is a few differences, but nothing major in terms of your Flex on PowerSDR.  If you look closer at the MRX version of PowerSDR its a bit different with a lot more controls embedded in it.  No notch filters yet.  One cool thing though is the DJ knobs are built in tot he core code.  Second reciever can show a wider swatch of bandwidth as I understand it.  You have to really dig into the MRX version of PowerSDR to appreciate it.

cuSDR on the other hands looks to be very graphically appealing.  No Xmit yet, however, its being worked on.

Both SDRs look to hold a lot of future promise!

I am sure its going to be quite the SDR, I have little doubt about that. 

Of course, SDR is all about Software.  From what I can tell they still have quite a ways to go towards providing a complete radio that provides all the General Purpose Ham functions.  Probably whats most suprising though to me is how much more work they have yet to get done to get the basics done.  They grossly missed their original timeline!  No real excuses for that, they need to get better at projecting dates. 

I wouldn't be suprised to see them launch here in 3Q but with incomplete software.  All said and done I bet they miss expectations by more than a year from the roginal projected release date.  By that I mean a full functional radio with bugs.  That means CAT control, all bands, all modes ect.  It goes back to posts I and others made a year ago.

All that said though, when done it should be a very nice transciever if the software is stable.

All in the spirit of being humble and keeping it all real, including being able to poke fun at oneself, I have to confess I added another ferrite bead this weekend!   

I couldnt add this comment to my PowerSDR thread since it was locked because folks couldnt behave.  Anyways, I got a very nice Green Heron Rotator Controller and had to put a bead on the USB cable.  You can read more about it on my blog if your interested!

Lol, looks like I need to buy some more beads for USB cables!

Whats to explain?  Do you know of any new development specifically targeted at new features for the 5K?  Unless the price is dropped significantly the 6500 will likely be the mid range radio.  The lower models have a different price point that will allow them still to be viable selling products for a little while longer.  Still though, I predict we will see more compettion coming soon that will make those less attractive.

As an SDR the Flex 5K has pretty much matured, it has the basic software covered and is end of marketing life.  Most Flex 5Ks sold now will be on the used market.

Of course this is merely my humble opinion and not based on any facts.

As a current active Flex 5K user I am not really expecting anything new for that radio.

Hi Bill,

at this point my comment is based on observations and reading user posts in the yahoo group.  I hope to actually have one this summer when the backlog is filled.

I am refering to user threads on calibrating the power output, mic setup, Vac Setup, Power connectors, ect.  Depening on what software a user selects to use there may be other variables.  I suppose this is true of many other SDRs as well and my comparison might be more akin to SDR's in general verses a typical traditional knobbed radio.

Not trying to say its a big deal, just more to it than pulling it out of the box and poluging it in if you want to use it as a full blown transciever.  As a reciever its probably as easy as pulling it out and hooking it up and powering up.

Of course anyone is free to join the Yahoo group and make their own observations.  In fact, I encourage it!

I am contrasting what I read based on already owning and using a Flex today as well as a KX3 that I sometimes use as an SDR as well.  

I am looking forward to my future Anan.  I do not believe Apache-labs is actually pitching these as easy to setup rigs.  I do not want to be the ham that creates unrealistic expectations for future owners.  This is merely my position about buying and owning products.  I wish to communicate to others hams as I would want them to communicate to me and not glorify and sugar coat products.  I am not accusing you of doing this, just saying I condone fanboy posts in genreal when they are misleading.

Hey folks, I have been away a bit learning as much as I can about The Anan SDRs.

I read a few notes here and thought I would pass on what I have learned.

If you go and research the two camps in question here you will learn there are reasons for their paths, IE, processing in radio verses processing in PC.  There are some interesting videos out there you can watch for free on Ham Radio Now starting at 61 and running through 64 or so on SDRs.  Good stuff.  In summary Flex wanted to get away from the pain of supporting windows issues while the Mercury team wanted to reduce cost and move processing to the PC.  The second upshot of moving it to the PC for them is all the open source development that can be done building the radio in software.

It would seem the big bet is Ethernet will speed up the data transfer to the PC and thus reduce the bottleneck.  You will still want a good SDR PC if your going to run all the junk I do plus multiple slices.

Lets talk about Flex for a second.  I would say the average ham wanting a flex would likely be content with the 6500.  Unless you want to have a second Antenna hooked up for additional slices or coverage, you really probably won't use it.  As referenced, you can only listen to so many at a time.  It's the visual element if anything that will be interesting. 

You can see the whole HF spectrum on either rig in a single slice so that alone will help a ham monitor band activity. 

I have not heard of sputtering or hiccups in the user form yet.  The Anan's look like they are very hands on as far as setup and config.  The Flex rigs will likely be more out of the box ready.  Truly apples and oranges in many respects.  One being a very commercial offering and the other coming from a ham homegrown approach.

Smile, some things never will change, like the SDR wars here.

Alas, I won't likely try 2.6.4 until Tobias updates the fork so my knobs work.  Something I will not have to deal with on my next SDR.  I'll have all kinds of other stuff to deal with!  Lol

If one ones to buy a completed radio, they don't want to buy and SDR!  That said, I would say that the Flex 5K will likely not see new features in PowerSDR unless they come by virtue of updates really targeted at 1500 & 3000 users.

Hacking Open Source somehow sounds like more fun!

Seriously though, I was reading about soft ore processing on Cyclone FPGA's this afternoon.  Intriguing stuff!

Hey Bill, great points.  I agree they are vastly different hardware designs and so this thread is as much about comparing the radios as it is the merits of the designs and how those factors may or may not be relevant to the average Ham who wants to use them.

If we go back to another thread one user talks about how they like the fact that the Anan appears hackable.  While most hams dont probably care about hacking the radios themselves I liken it to how the masses often benefit from jailbreaks or hacks.  I know some cameras for example have been hacked to provide greater frame rate recording capabilities than the manufacture released with the camera.  The same may apply to the masses if and how these radios may be hacked as those hacks may open up new features in the Opensource software.

You obviously have other people that just want a commercial product that allows them to have a stellar operating experience, cost not being a real factor.

Some of this discussion we have already captured talks about some of the limitations and considerations around choosing one Radio over the other.  lol, and there are those who can afford and will own both.

Hopefully we can continue to explore the considerations of each design.  Thanks for sharing some nice bits of info there on the recievers in the Anan, great stuff and very educational for some of us.

Yes, there are a few new comments about the nature of how they work.  I think the difference in how they work with relation to the network is relevant.

I will continue to condense once enough info rolls in, its nice to be able to digest it for some of us in a single read.  Pleased feel free to follow along and or particpate either way! 

Upated

Flex 6700
The Flex Radios core features promise thin client access.  I believe that means you can hook a Mic to your PC and so long as it has a speaker you can access and use the radio anywhere on your home network.  A future promise is remote Internet access.

The Flex does its processing work on the radio and then sends the processed output to the thin client resulting in a smaller package for the netowrk connection and thin client to process.

One will be able to access all 8 slices from a given thin client.  I do not believe it was stated that more than one thin client may be used to access slices at a time meaning I could be using 4 or fewer slices upstairs while someone else used 4 or fewer slices downstairs.

The Flex has 2 Capture units to achieve Diversity Reception with 4 slices per Capture Unit

The Flex 6700 will have one option for Software, SmartSDR which is still unlreased, will require a maintenance fee of $200 annually and is new and likely to be buggy upon initial release (comment based on past experience with Flex Radio Systems).  The software will be able to fully access the hardware and all 8 slices when its released.  The radio is being marketed as a commercial elite ham radio system.

 

Anan 100D
The Anan radios core features promise thick client access now and possible thin client access later.  (note no thin client software is available or on the drawing board that I know of).  While the radio is connected via Ethernet you will hook a Mic to the radio and use your PC to control the radio.  Users desiring remote access either at home or on the internet would use the current skype and remote PC access software.

The Ana does its processing work on the PC by sending the IQ through the netwrok connection toi the fat client to be processed.  This requires a greater network bandwidth to send the fat data to the fat client.

One will be able to access all 2 of the 14 slices slices from a given thick client.  I do not believe it was stated that more than one thick client may be used to access slices at a time meaning I could be using 7 or fewer slices from one client while using another 7 or fewer slices from another software package.

The Anan has 2 ADC's to achieve Diversit Reception 7 slices available per ADC and expandability for additional soft cores

There are several Software packages new and old that are at various stages of development available for the Anan 100D.  These are mostly Open Source and there are no commercial fees on the plus side, however, no commitments for delivery on the minus side.  Also on the plus side, the radio is enthusiasticaly embraced with bug fixes often being released within hours of being reported.

PowerSDR - pretty stable - can only access 2 receivers on 1 or 2 of the ADCS.

These below are not fully functional packages yet.  
cuSDR - Very promising so far.  4 slices receive only so far.  
KISS - Seems limited so far, under development
Please feel free to add others here with comments as I am still exploring all the options.

The Anan 100D is marketed as a Experimental Kit SDR, calims of greatness seem very limited.  While no build is required, it would appear that some configuration and calibrations are required.


What else can people think of along these lines of thought?  Please be factual and objective.

Summary and Additional Comparison

Posted by: M0HCN
The flex appeared (at least in the hardware I saw) to have relay switched bandpass filters ahead of the ADCs, while the 100D uses a combination of the transmit LPF and switched HPFs on ADC1, with the second converter having only an anti aliasing filter....

The flex runs the ADCs at 250 Msamples/second vs 125M for the Hermes derived designs, possibly an issue on 6M where good aliasing performance is a big ask of the filters, this difference does however explain the larger slice count on the 100D as the FPGA area per slice will be about 1/4 - 1/2 that of that for the flex all else being equal.

The flex supports synchronous sampling at least for government users, but will apparently not support it for our market, this according to some discussion at the UK national rally last year (Something about ITAR regs in the US).
A pity, as electronically steered beam forming has interesting possibilities, especially if multiple receivers were widely geographically dispersed and locked to gps or similar (Think long baseline interferometry or HF radar).  The Anan hardware and software looks somewhat more amenable to having this sort of thing grafted on.

Finally, the Hermes/Anan rigs look to be hackable in a way the Flex is not.

The Flex 6700 may still reach maturity in terms of accessing more of the hardwares capability sooner than later.
The Anan 100D appears to be hardware wise to have more capability than the Flex in terms of potential, (14 Slices verses 8 slices) however, it will take a very large network of unpaid developers to tap all of its potential.  It is entirely possible that a good part of the radios potential may go untapped simply due to the code that needs to be developed and or the PC resources that may be required to run 14 slices from 2 ADCs.

Verses the Flex the Anan is more dependent on a clean fat network connection to send fat data to the PC.  This may be relevant if more than one radio is on a network or the network has many other devices consuming bandwidth.  Remote access comes to mind.  This can likely overcome with a dedicated network for the radio.

Flex 6700 over $7000 plus $200 a year for software
Anan 100D $3000 and no fees

Once we get some more points of interest captured I will consolidate again and repost.

Excellent Points!

Just the sort of objective response I am hoping we get so we can all learn and exchange views!

Thanks!

In an effort to be objective and also double check my thinking about the Anan 100D Verses the Flex 6700 I'll share what I believe to be some points of interest.  I invite others to chime in and help create a clear view comparing the two transcievers.

First of all, let's get the notion of IF addressed.  The Flex 6700 for all practical purposes does not exist yet.  No units have been released and we do not have a formal release date.  Some of the points of interest below assume it will be released this year.  Lets call it late Q4 for the sake of putting that point behind us and acknowledge that it may be sooner or may be later.

While the Anan 100D is shipping already for the Anan 100D to compete there are assumptions as well on software. There are multiple options for the Anan 100D, some based off exisiting code bases and some new software being written that can not yet fully function for full transciever capabilities.

Ironic that both camps face the fact that there is not yet any software available to realize the full core aspects of the hardware.

Fair table setting?

I'll assume I have been fair with regards to each camp above and continue forward.

To further set the table lets say we are talking about each SDR's ability to function as a full RX/TX transceiver.

Flex 6700
The Flex Radios core features promise thin client access.  I believe that means you can hook a Mic to your PC and so long as it has a speaker you can access and use the radio anywhere on your home network.  A future promise is remote Internet access.

One will be able to access all 8 slices from a given thin client.  I do not believe it was stated that more than one thin client may be used to access slices at a time meaning I could be using 4 or fewer slices upstairs while someone else used 4 or fewer slices downstairs.

The Flex has 2 Capture units to achieve Diversity Reception with 4 slices per Capture Unit

The Flex 6700 will have one option for Software, SmartSDR which is still unlreased, will require a maintenance fee of $200 annually and is new and likely to be buggy upon initial release (comment based on past experience with Flex Radio Systems).  The software will be able to fully access the hardware and all 8 slices when its released.  The radio is being marketed as a commercial elite ham radio system.

 

Anan 100D
The Anan radios core features promise thick client access now and possible thin client access later.  (note no thin client software is available or on the drawing board that I know of).  While the radio is connected via Ethernet you will hook a Mic to the radio and use your PC to control the radio.  Users desiring remote access either at home or on the internet would use the current skype and remote PC access software.

One will be able to access all 2 of the 14 slices slices from a given thick client.  I do not believe it was stated that more than one thick client may be used to access slices at a time meaning I could be using 7 or fewer slices from one client while using another 7 or fewer slices from another software package.

The Anan has 2 ADC's to achieve Diversit Reception 7 slices available per ADC and expandability for additional soft cores

There are several Software packages new and old that are at various stages of development available for the Anan 100D.  These are mostly Open Source and there are no commercial fees on the plus side, however, no commitments for delivery on the minus side.  Also on the plus side, the radio is enthusiasticaly embraced with bug fixes often being released within hours of being reported.

PowerSDR - pretty stable - can only access 2 receivers on 1 or 2 of the ADCS.

These below are not fully functional packages yet.  
cuSDR - Very promising so far.  4 slices receive only so far.  
KISS - Seems limited so far, under development
Please feel free to add others here with comments as I am still exploring all the options.

The Anan 100D is marketed as a Experimental Kit SDR, calims of greatness seem very limited.  While no build is required, it would appear that some configuration and calibrations are required.


What else can people think of along these lines of thought?  Please be factual and objective.

Summary

The Flex 6700 may still reach maturity in terms of accessing more of the hardwares capability sooner than later.
The Anan 100D appears to be hardware wise to have more capability than the Flex in terms of potential, (14 Slices verses 8 slices) however, it will take a very large network of unpaid developers to tap all of its potential.  It is entirely possible that a good part of the radios potential may go untapped simply due to the code that needs to be developed and or the PC resources that may be required to run 14 slices from 2 ADCs.

Flex 6700 over $7000 plus $200 a year for software
Anan 100D $3000 and no fees

Ok folks, lets see if we can be civil and capture the rest of what needs to be captured!

Oh come on Steve, jump ship and hop on the Anan boat with the rest of us!

Seriously, I do hope it all works out for you.  The Anan boat is moving seemingly faster right now.  What will be interesting is to see where both camps sit a year from now.  Hardware wise they both appear to hold great promise so all will need to be patient!