I went with the K4KIO and am loving it!  You can read my notes on it as I went through the process of putting it up among other station improvements and see some pictures as well.

I have to admit though, it's an ugly bugger though, no way around that!  But man, the DX's I am making with it are so easy and a real thrill!

It's light, however, it takes more support to do it right than most people will tell you.  While the wind load numbers are low, you'd still be amazed at what kind of support antennas need.  Look at your Zone and also think about the nastiest winds you get.  If you get snow and ice I suggest the snow cables as well.  I went 6-20m (all six bands) on mine and got it up about 34 feet.

Look for station updates on my site under articles.  I have written about my install challenges, ect, if you suddenly get a hankering and or permission to do it.

One last funny antidote.. For about a week I had just the roof tower up and one night while sitting on the front porch some people walking in the neighborhood asked what it was.  I told them it was a tribute to the Eiffel Tower and that I had started up the French corridor of the neighborhood.  They got a good laugh out of it!  I am sure my HOA will add an antenna clause at their next meeting.

Best of luck!

I will add that I think Flex Radio Systems has not done a good job of managing the myths that now circle some of their products.

Bundling $20 worh of ferrites and suggesting people put them on the audio related cables as well as 2 paragraphs in their manual on how to avoid common RFI issues would have been a whole lot cheaper than the lost sales and Ill will not doing it has created.

I doubt they will do it since they have undoubtedly collected a lot of money and put themselves under the gun, however, they should really get a few Flex 6K radios out early to some testers who would be under non disclosure who test and objectively report back what they find with the radio in exchange for a significant discount on the rig or agreement to return it if they don't like it.

Many companies do this, I can obviously see that Elecraft did this with the KX3 with prototype radios.  It's a very smart and savvy business practice to get ahead of issues rather than having to deal with the embarrassment and commotion failing to do so causes.  So far, the inability to catch up with the backlog of orders is the only real negative I have heard about that radio. We shall see how time treats them, but I am guessing they have it mostly right.  Those that don't like Elecraft radios know not to buy one for the most part as well.

The flex radios are decent radios if you know how to make the most of them and ensure you understand what they are and what they are not when you buy them.  Yes, Power SDR has obvious bugs.  It lost some of my settings last night again.  Same one for the TX checkbox in the antenna settings.  Ironically I read on the flex site that 2.35 backs up your settings and uses the backup if your settings get corrupted.  I had to laugh when I read this because obviously the program has no idea it's lost a setting.  

The radios are not the best and not the worse.  That's the simple truth of it all.  Some radios work better for some individuals than others.

It's also true that if Flex has mishandelded the support and sales of some of their users then they reep the wrath they receive from the fallout.  I respect your right here to not like or even hate the company.  For the most part I am having fun and success with the rig.  But I don't use it for CW.  I am 90% SSB right now and plan on doing some more RTTY and PSK31 soon to pick up some more countries.

Yes, I am probably more an experimenter at this point than I am a DXer, but I am learning to become a DXer and am loving it.

I will tell you this much, I have learned that a good ham learns to make what they have work for the most part unless they don't like their rig.  The Yaesu 897D has been touted by many to be a great rig, but it wasn't what I really wanted.  I have moved on, use the Flex 5000A right now and it mostly is getting the job done.  I am learning to check the settings when I fire up now, and making it work.  

I chased one DX last night and got the Canary Islands.  15 & 20 at the time I hammed were not so great.  I really didn't even think I stood a chance making the DX.  I listened a little bit, decided that just maybe I could get him and got him on my first call.  There is as much in the technique and knowing your stations capabilities and how to work a DX as there is in the equipment itself.  The Rig I have is more than capable of getting the job done.  

Please take note that I have the equivalent of an RFI factory in my shack.  Just take a look at big Bertha alone and you see the potential for trouble.  Same goes for the front end audio I have which can cause any radio trouble.  I know this from having talked to other non flex users who elmered me in getting it setup.  Both non SDR users who I worked with told me I needed a ferrite on the audio cables.  They had the same issues and they both had Kenwood rigs.  It's not an excuse for Flex radios, it's just what has to be done when you play with certain toys.

Here is my point.... I have only added 3 ferrites in my whole setup and have no RFI issues.  Call it luck if you want or maybe you can say I just took time to figure out what Flex could have proactively told me in terms of what needed to be done.  I can't really tell you what to think.  

I am sure my requirements for a rig and expectations are much less than many a long time hams.  I get that and I think people also get that many hams have limited needs a d desires and what they want may be very different from what someone else wants or expects.

The truth about these radios lies somewhere between the extremes.   What I do know is right now, I have it all working for the most part, I understand the current quirks and am able to work Some nice DX contacts.  I'd say that the system surprises me more often than it fails me at this point and time.  It took some work and experimentation to get there though.

That's what is great about these forums though, we can come here, share and learn!  Some really smart people here, but also some people that seem angry.  The anger is real and must have been caused somewhere.  I feel bad for those that have had experiences that have left them angry.  Life's too short to be angry too long in my opinion.

Thanks for listening!  I'll sit back and listen and learn some more now!

I have put a few ferrites on, only on Audio related cables, head phones, mic in put, speaker out lines.  I would guess that the headphone and speaker out cables is not needed on most other rigs.  I tend to tell things how I honestly see them and that's it on ferrites for me.  Since putting the 3 ferrites on those cables I have not had issues other than having coax cables too close to each other where they can leak into each other.  You can see though that even there I have not gone to too much trouble if you look at the rats nest of cables on the back of my rack.  But I have also read similar stories with people on their Yaesu FT-2000 rigs with the DMUs.

All of the other RF issues I found on my flex visually using the Panadaptor were verifiable on my little Eton 100 Shortwave radio when I tuned to the same frequency.  Things like a bad lamp, air cleaners, bad cap on the AC, daughter cell phone charger ect.  I bet I am not alone in having these kinds of RF issues since even a small SW radio can pick them up once I knew where to tune to to hear them. 

That's the straight scoop and the basis for my statements.  Yes, I have a flex radio, no I am not a member of the Flex die hard fan club, I think if you read my posts and the articles on my site you'll see I talk about both sides of the coin.

I appreciate folks weighing in here.  I think that my path will be to use my KX3 when it arrives early next year as a second receiver and backup as well as QRP and camping rig and see if the higher dynamic range and sensitivity really makes a difference for me.

The digital wattmeter I added to my station really allows me to get some nice efficiency out of my am so I am guessing I will be able to get as much as 300 watts in some cases out of the 12 watt max.  Ideal? No, but a place to start playing and see whether a world class Reciever is going to make a difference.  It has panadaptor software, digital modes ectandprobably I can even have some QRP off my hex beam on the roof.  Still need to decide what I will do when mobile, might like to build my own antenna for that.

I summarized my thoughts in an article on my website about my desired SDR for the future.   I doubt the idea will ever come to be since it requires someone to have enough discipline in radios, Computer and software development to become real.  Flex could have probably done this with the 6k series, but they forked in a slightly different direction.

If I believe a world class Reciever really does make a difference, then perhaps I will look at the available options at that time and see what the landscape looks like.  We may have more announcements in a year from now and more options.

Thanks again!

Not sure how I missed this one before, but this is a slick way of getting the rods in fast.  I think you can rent this tool so that will save you $150.  The part I really like is his solution in dealing with the lack of ground rod driving bits for the ads hammer drill format.

Check it out!

http://www.n4lcd.com/groundrod/

Here's a video of someone driving a rod with a setup like this, I think you'll agree it beats the old fashion way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvCZvNj8H30&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Now I need a small trench digging solution so ican can get the rods connected!  Anyone got anything equally slick for quickly digging a 6-8 inch tight trench?

I would really like for Flex to fix the issues in Power SDR and bring the 6K series successfully to market.  I think that's a win win for both Flex users and non flex users.

I hope they continue to support the 5000 and don't abandon us owners.

Owning a Flex is interesting to say the least for me as I have built my station around my 5K.  It's not a perfect setup, nor is the 5K a perfect radio with perfect software.  Power SDR is quirky and the more time I spend on it, the more little quirks I see.  The most annoying is random setting changes or loss of random settings.

That said though, if you get it all setup right, when all is working its a nice operating experience for those who don't mind a computer being at the heart of their setup.

I think I mentioned here I was redoing my website and updating some of the articles ect.  That's up and going now and your welcome to read about my setup if you want.

I was ragchewing with a radio engineer yesterday who actually designs SDRs and ironically he uses a manual rig.  We chatted about specs a bit and again, even if the specs turn out to be what is being hyped, I still believe few people have a shack that can really leverage some of them.  

For example, if your shack has a S5/S6 noise floor, a radio that can support a S3 noise floor won't be of much value.  There are hams out there though who have made the significant investments in antennas, grounding, ect that will likely enjoy these new radios if they pan out.

Today on a good day my shack sees an S2/S3 noise floor on the new antenna.  The grounding I am doing has helped the noise floors, but on my wire antenna and my vertical dipole the noise dynamics are very different as compared to the hex.  

Let me explain a little bit.  Imagine your noise floor on a Panadaptor and the sawtooth visual that you see on a Panadaptor.  The teeth emerge from some bottom level of your floor.  The teeth on two of the antennas are very tall and they are mainly representative of noise.  Those antennas are only grounded at the panel where as the hex on the roof is grounded both at the tower and at the entry to the shack.  The hex teeth are tiny and clean.  

One of the cool things about a radio like the flex 5k is being able to run, see and listen to 2 antennas at once.  The flex even acts like a mixer letting you independently adjust the volume levels of each Reciever/Antenna.  The hex is so clean and crisp sounding where as the inverted V and Vertical Dipole are noisy and have static.  Same radio, same QTH, seemingly the same noise floor, but very different dynamics.  

Sometimes it seems like the other two antennas are not useful, however, they do have their purpose and on some occasions they can still pull in a signal better than the hex albeit it much noisier and with static.  Yes, I agree with someone here that said you must also listen or you will miss signals.  That happened yesterday when I raked in china.  I found the signal on the vertical faint and in the noise and then swung the beam around and raked it in.  That's DXing!

The SDR experience is just very different than the traditional radio experience.  Some like it and others don't.  Someone here said SDR radios are for experimenters and to some degree I buy into that.  It's hard to explain, but in part due to my lack of experience and the different experience traditional rigs represent, I was blind to a lot of RFI issues in my shack.  On my Yaesu when I started my noise floor on the SMeter was S6/S7.  I doubt I would have found half of what I did and would still probably have an S5/S6 floor.  Yes, some issues were ones you could hear, but some were much more evident on a Panadaptor and the patterns they represented were easy to spot.

The whole point is this, if your not an experiementer oriented person, SDR radios for a true Ham could easily become a frustrating experience and a lot of people blame the RFI issues they see on the radio when in reallity most of them have to do with the persons shack.  Others might buy a SDR and think nothing of the fact that they have issues in their shack and find the experience comped able or more exciting than that of a traditional rig.  New seems better, new seems exciting!  Nothing wrong with that, new can be fun and thrilling!

If you are not willing to do some work on your shack if needed and experience a bloody beating in your usage of these super radios (new hardware, new technology and new software equals bloody times), or just use them the best you can, you may want to temper your own expectations and excitement until it all gets ironed out and priced for the masses.  

I truly believe that the current line of Flex radios is only now approaching that place, and even saying that might be a stretch as I believe they are really still experimenters radios.

You can see the station and read about it on my site.  Go easy on me, I am still a new Ham, not even a year under my belt yet so I am tossing out my disclaimer now.

As a friend and I discussed today on VHF on the way to work today, we can make our ham experience as simple or as complex as we want.  I have chose the complex path as that is often a lot of fun for me.  Hence you will see things that represent excess!  I get that, that's just part of my chosen fun!  Some hams buy their antennas, so home brew them, ect.  To each their own!

The link is below in the signature if you want to check it out.  You can also find my 6 month comments on owning the Flex 5K there as well in the articles.

New website and lots of station updates this spring and summer.

This article I wrote sums up what the station looks like now.

http://roaringstar.com/index.php/articles/43-roaringstar-v-1-0

I keep finding that Power SDR for no apparent reason is loosing parts of my settings.  For example, a week ago my mic settings changed from one session to the next.  Everything else remained as it was.  

Yesterday my antenna settings had lost the check in the TX checkbox.  Some wired stuff there for sure.   Stuff like that they definitely need to resolve.  At version 2.35 we shouldn't see stuff like that.  This latter one had me chasing an Xmit problem when I did not really have one, just buggy software.  Probably cost me another DX country as by the time I figured it out the band changed and the DX opportunity was gone.

This is the stuff that people need to stop covering up for Flex.  They just need to deal with it, especially before they are off collecting money for a new radio and new software.  Software sporadicaly loosing parts of its settings is embarrassing in my opinion.  This has happened about 5 time in about 7-8 months of ownership.

 This is the very thing I would be very fearful of as far as the new radios go.  The bugs and the time it will take for Flex to address them.

Google gets you this.

"http://www.flex-radio.com/Products.aspx?topic=CDRX-3200"

Say the specs and speculation turns out to be real, the question I have at that point is this.  How many people are going to have a shack and antenna system that is really going to be able to leverage those specs?

Honestly, there is no reason for a model like this to end until a new better paradigm comes along.

If the manufacturer does things right, they can periodly release hardware and better plugins perpetually.  The secret for the vendor is to create enough stickiness and reverse compatability that the ham remains happy and does not feel overwhelmed to keep spending small amounts of money to improve their setup.  As you point out, over various generations of iPhones, people slowly replace their apps a little at a time.  At any given time the user doesn't want to switch platforms, say to android for example, because they don't want to have to repurchase all their apps.

Not that I am advocating this, but as an example, if you built the radio off of a AMD mini PC in a radio cabinet that had enough room for the original motherboard and then an add on daughter board then the radio hardware could be built on PCI like cards and added in as the user expanded.  One could pick whatever OS they want, I only advocate Linux because it can be light and very fast as well as stripped down to the essentials and then be built back up if needed.

The radio cabinet can accommodate the knobs and display and a simple VGA card could be used for an eternal display.  You get the Ethernet and USB with the motherboard already as well as the initial VGA output for the display.  AMD processors are cheap as well.

It might be difficult to visualize because people might think that the OS in the radio would be used to run software like a PC, but I am not advocating that.  The PC and is in the radio is dedicated to the radio.  You get cat on another external PC.  The radio can run without any other PC and the end user really doesn't even have to know there is a PC in the radio.  Stripped Linux and tight controls only allow the radio PC to interact with the vendor website for updates to prevent viruses, ect.

Too much to explain in this thread.

Not talking about Linux on a PC in this case, talking about it being an embedded OS that is not really there holistically for the user, just as a radio interface where needed.  For example, if the radio had a display which a clock plugin ran on, Linux would be the OS the platform the clock was developed on and would drive the display.  

The end user if they used the radio with PC software would still use their PC like today with their normal cat software.  The programs if you will would be accessed and controlled by the knobs.  Knobs and buttons could be assigned by the user.  This could be managed in a variety of ways including even having a full robust set of knobs that only were activated when a user purchased a feature.

Developers could develop plugins and such on Linux or an Simulator running under OS's much like they do today for Andrioid, or other Phone OS's like IOs.

You can even think of a radio like this as being a lot like an iPhone and the software being a series of apps you buy for the radio that all interact with the core radio software.

I have a few iPhone apps from years ago I still have, they still work, but I am on my 3rd iPhone and second iPad and was able to carry the apps with me.  Because they don't cost all that much, if someone writes a truly better app, I can decide to buy it and replace or discard my old one without a terrible sense of loss.

This gives longevity to the overall platform and still allows for affordable hardware upgrades.  I still have some very old PC software I use as well.  I have had many PC's and in many cases the software still works or I upgrade and pay a fee if I buy a newer version.

Real SDRs would be nicer if they followed that kind of model.  As far as you the user are concerned, your radio runs without a PC, but you can still have a real SDR under the hood that is very much software upgradeable and expandable.  In reallity, a person could buy a radio like this and not even really realize its an SDR because to them they get a radio that they can buy a piece at a time with exactly the features they want and when they want them.

Let's take the flex 6k series for example.  Using this type architecture you would be able to get a straight 2 slice SDR Reciever with let's say a basic notch filter and user interface ( knobs) for $1200.  

Let's say you get it and you really want to add the extra fancy display with Panadaptor display.  So for $800 you can add it.  Let's say for $250 you can opt for a cheaper card that plugs in and gives you the ability to add a VGA monitor if you prefer.

Let's say you want 2 more slice receivers, you go online and order them and the radio is software updated and you have 4 slices now.  Let's say they run slower than you want or you want  More slices, you order a card and 2 more slices, plug in the card, radio downloads, and your there.

Transmit capability, you order the Xmit card.  Second real Reciever, order it plug it in.  More notch filters, order and download and your there.

Let's St you want an equalizer, order it, download and your display updates and you have and EQ.  The EQ knobs on the radio now function and you can adjust EQ levels.

Rotator control you ask, sure, you buy and download it when you need it.

Flex 7k comes out.  Sell old radio hardware, buy new box and your exisiting investment of SDR software plugins downloads and your on your way.

This architecture creates stickiness because you don't have to keep starting from zero like you do today.

I completely agree, it's just some architectures are inherently designed to last a little longer than others.

I am really trying to understand what SDR's uniquely bring to the table that say the example I provided above of a FT-5000 with Panadaptor and cat control do not.  Can you elaborate more?

Let's be clear here. I am not doing this to attack Flex owners or even Flex radio.  I happen to be a flex ower right now.  Honestly, I am a newer ham and have limited experience with other radios.  I really liked my new toy when I got it, it was really cool as compared to the Yaesu 897D I have and the Icom 7000 I still have in my truck.

We grow and learn in a hobby like this, we can all change opinions.  I spend a lot of time waiting on big Bertha to boot up each time I want to use my radio.  Leave it on you say, no way, Bertha has 2 600 watt power supplies and can heat a rather large room when left running.  Berta runs windows and if left running can become unstable resulting in even more time to recover before I get to start using the radio.  Then there is Windows patches, always seems to be a new one.  Then there is Norton antivirus and it's updates and scans.  Yup, I could get rid of Bertha, but there is still the rest of the hassle. With just a few hours a week to ham, you can certainly appreciate not wanting to spend too much time waiting on a computer.

The older I get the less fuss and feeding I like to do for computers.  Life is short!  Fun is sparse when your in the heart of your career.  Fun was building a really cool station,   You can read the articles on my website.  I have one called loving the flex 5000.  Integrating the flex is another I have there and pehaps interesting one.  It was all fun, very cool and honestly, hitting a DX today is a amazingy easy!

I believe their are interesting merits to pursing software defined radio.  SDR manufactures have really missed the boat in my humble opinion.  We are still in the infancy where the focus is still more on the hardware rather than the software.

Here is what SDR radios should be.  A small computing platform with the very basic hardware to convert the signal to digital data.  All the filters, DSP should be software plugins that run on the SDR Reciever.  Want to buy another notch filter, AGC, 2k roof filter, you put them in your cart on the vendors website and purchase them.  They then download to your radio.  You only buy what you want and when you need it.  Want to transmit, you add a card, download the transmit plugin/module and any other XMIT features you want.  Again, you can build your radio when you want and how you want. Want a second Reciever, same deal!  hardware if you want another antenna, plugin software module if you want another slice.

In this modle the vendor makes money when they release new plugins.  Yes, we hams may resent that, but the upshot is we get what we want when we want it and only if we want it.

BTW, that radio has add on knobs and display as well.  We are talking about a scalable and upgradeable architecture where your plugins  and your periphials can move with you if you need a new box.  Platform grows and needs more horse power, guess what, you can add another processor card.

Think about the plugins they could make, they go beyond just radio filters.  Want to enhance your Xmit audio, there would be plugins.  Same for Recieve.  Want world clock displays, add it to your cart and it downloads to your radio. Peripherals could be added via Ethernet or USB 3. Provide an open architecture and license the rights to others to produce third party add ons and plugins.

Last but not least, let's not build it on Windows OS, let's pick something like Linux that is really stable and fast!

Now your talking SDR!

There is no such vision yet and for the most part, SDR radio is only just now catching up in emulating hardware.  Maybe the Flex 6K series is showing some signs of advancement, however, it's on a seemingly limited closed end architecture.  In all honesty, it smells a lot like the flex 5k that is now destined to die.

This thread is about looking for alternatives.

So, if we could get past the personal battles and talk about today's realistic alternatives for a state of the art system geared towards DXing, that would be the goal.