Blackbox Station Operators the “Bad Boys” of Amateur Radio?

[WB6RQN]

You guys are too much. Amazing.

The funny thing is, you actually think that this matters. You actually think that Flex cares so much about what you guys are saying on eHam that they are sending in secret agents to ... I don't know, do something.

I have made it clear from the beginning that I own and like Flex radios. I have also made it clear from the beginning that I think that some of their stuff is good and some of it not-so-good. I also didn't give myself the Flexie award (although I am pleased I got it). It certainly wasn't any secret.

But you guys are so locked up in some kind of conspiracy theory that you can't see anything else.

Like I said, you guys are just too much. You are completely incapable of having a conversation about the technical issues with me because you think I am from Flex, no matter what I say.

Wow.

I knew a guy on an aviation list who once said, "Whatever Brian says to do, I'm going to do just the opposite." So I said, "Be sure to put oil in your engine." :-)

Is there anyone else here who has their brain turned on?

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[KF6QEX]

I was going to say we are in of topic hell again, but considering the thread title,  we are only partially off topic.

You really did not think he was impartial?

No, it was too damn obviou BUT  I  didn't know his partiality had won an Award!

Most of it covered here (minus the award bit):
https://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/topic,73839.msg500320.html#msg500320


Brian!

Anyone who posts favorably to Flex is going to be seen as an evangelist/missionary/plant/propagandist by you.

Ok so I left ambassador out. Oh Wait...Flex straddled you with that title. not me.

ou guys are too much.

Did you consider you might be thw wrong size?

The funny thing is, you actually think that this matters. You actually think that Flex cares so much about what you guys are saying on eHam that they are sending in secret agents to ... I don't know, do something. 

You are here aren't you ?

also didn't give myself the Flexie award (although I am pleased I got it). It certainly wasn't any secret.

Why not add it to your sig line so everyone knows we know your allegiances.

You are completely incapable of having a conversation about the technical issues with me because you think I am from Flex, no matter what I say.

There is something wrong when you try to chat people up in front of the meat counter at the market and start going on about the benefits of a vegan diet or sport or the weather or asking what time it is while wearing a "Meat is murder" T-Shirt.
That just chaps my hide.

As you have noticed, I only get involved in your company related posts. I mean c'mon now. Paid or not you are a "company man". That is just a fact . Not a dig, not that there is anything "wrong" with it as long as it is not disguised under a veil of  just  being here to help.

It's too bad too because when it comes to the UI issue you seem to have a pretty balanced and almost unbiased  (as in Flex-free)  view.
But then again they say you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

Online forums are funny that way.
There is no hanshake, no smiling faces or or sound of laughter, no body language to give you clues as to whom you can trust.
And the slightest avoidance of disclosure is magnified tenfold. That's what happened to you.
Maybe the 2011 award will make up for it. (Yes that was a dig that I just couldn't resist! )

 

[KE5JPP]

No, Brian, you are the one who is amazing.  The shear volume of your posts to the Flex Radio lists is amazing.    So far in January, February, and March of this year, only Tim Ellison (Official Goodwill Ambassador 2007) beats you in the number of posts to the main Flex Radio mailing list.  That is as far back as I bothered to look in the Flex Radio mailing list archives.  I bet 2010 was even better for you.  

Check this out guys: "Flexies" are awarded special treatment by Flex Radio such as access to preview copies to not yet released software, membership into the private Beta tester email lists, private tours of the Flex Radio factory, etc...  It appears you become eligible for these "perks" when you demonstrate your commitment to being a "Defender of the Flex" on various mailing lists and forums. It helps if you are willing to volunteer to work for Flex sales by manning Flex booths at various Hamfests.  It also helps if you join the other "Flexies" in providing the "official" company approved response to bug reports on the Flex Radio lists - you know, "it works fine here", "it must be something YOU are doing wrong", "YOU need a better computer", etc...  What is most amazing is that these "Flexies" seem to let themselves willingly be manipulated into "unpaid volunteer" service in the Flex Radio sales and tech support team.    Most of them really seem to believe that they are being unbiased and impartial even though they are receiving special treatment and recognition for their efforts from the company.  

[WB6RQN]

No, Brian, you are the one who is amazing.  The shear volume of your posts to the Flex Radio lists is amazing.    So far in January, February, and March of this year, only Tim Ellison (Official Goodwill Ambassador 2007) beats you in the number of posts to the main Flex Radio mailing list.  That is as far back as I bothered to look in the Flex Radio mailing list archives.  I bet 2010 was even better for you.  

That is distinctly possible. As a past ham radio magazine columnist (I wrote the Packet Talk column for 73 Amateur Radio back at the end of the '80s) and a professional technical writer, I have no trouble sitting down and writing a couple of pages. Usually it is to explain something that people don't understand so that they can help themselves better. I also started the Flex Radio Wiki with Neal Campbell, K3NC. I have no intention of apologizing for that either.

So what you are saying is that posting and helping people is somehow evil? That is just loony tunes.

Check this out guys: "Flexies" are awarded special treatment by Flex Radio such as access to preview copies to not yet released software, membership into the private Beta tester email lists, private tours of the Flex Radio factory, etc... It appears you become eligible for these "perks" when you demonstrate your commitment to being a "Defender of the Flex" on various mailing lists and forums.

This is completely false.

1. I have had to pay full price for every radio I have purchased from Flex, the same price any other person has to pay. I have also had to pay full price when I sent in my broken Flex 5000 for repair.

2. Access to "preview" copies of the software is available to anyone who wishes to be a beta tester and will provide useful feedback to Flex on bugs. Jerry, W6UV, was asked to be a beta tester, said he was interested, but then hasn't done anything about it so far. Sometimes these vaunted "preview" copies render the radio unusable for normal operation and we have to fall back to a previous version. It is rarely a big advantage.

3. Anyone who calls ahead is given a private tour of the Flex Radio "Factory". It takes all of 5 minutes because it just isn't very big. But their engineering facility is pretty cool. I wish I could afford the test equipment they have. It is also really interesting to talk to the guys who have designed the radios and learned about the kinds of problems they ran into and had to solve. Flex's hardware design experience is pretty darned impressive.

So I am wondering what the perqs are that I supposedly get for being some kind of unpaid volunteer? I don't see that I get anything more or less than you would get.

BTW Gene, Flex is only about 350 miles away from you. Instead of making things up, why don't you go visit and see for yourself? I bet that Greg or Dudley would even buy you lunch.

It helps if you are willing to volunteer to work for Flex sales by manning Flex booths at various Hamfests.  It also helps if you join the other "Flexies" in providing the "official" company approved response to bug reports on the Flex Radio lists - you know, "it works fine here", "it must be something YOU are doing wrong", "YOU need a better computer", etc...  What is most amazing is that these "Flexies" seem to let themselves willingly be manipulated into "unpaid volunteer" service in the Flex Radio sales and tech support team.    Most of them really seem to believe that they are being unbiased and impartial even though they are receiving special treatment and recognition for their efforts from the company.  

Yes, I worked in Flex's booth at Pacificon. I had a good time. I met a lot of people I have talked to on the reflectors. Yeah, and I even sold a couple of radios to friends of mine. Flex picked up the tab for my meals and hotel room so I got to go to Pacificon on their nickel. I even told you that earlier.

And the funny thing is, many times it DOES work fine for someone else. I have had good luck in getting every computer I have tried to work with PowerSDR. Some work better than others. Some were so marginal that I gave them up.

But you know, there have been time when people have said, "it works fine here, you need a better computer," when there really WAS a problem with the software or hardware. If someone said something like that to me I would be frustrated too. OTOH, I don't recall anyone working for Flex directly having said that. Make sure that you get your information from the horse's mouth. Dudley and Tim are official tech support for Flex. (They are paid by Flex.) If you hear from Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR, Eric Wachsmann, KE5DTO, Greg Jurrens, K5GJ, or Steve Hicks, N5AC, that is the official voice of Flex as well. If you are asking a question about the 1500 and Graham Haddock answers, you are talking to the designer of that radio.

Oh, Flex is not perfect, far from it. If you bother to read my posts (like the one from yesterday) you will see that I don't agree with everything Flex does. (There is a LOT I would change in PowerSDR.) But I do like that they are doing something different and that they aren't afraid to put their software out there even before it is quite ready.

But you know something, even though I like Flex, have their radios (all three of their transceivers), have worked in their booth, and have received a "Flexie" award, I don't really like being their apologist here. I really don't agree with everything Flex has done in PowerSDR and I have been vocal in saying so. But I also don't like seeing Flex misrepresented by people who either don't know or who are out-and-out lying. So do consider that a significant portion of my response comes from watching someone, the people who work at Flex in this case, being treated unfairly in a public forum. I would do the same for anyone here -- including you too, Gene, Stan, and Dimitri.

Now I need to go out and get my HF antenna back up. The high winds here this past week caused a short piece of mast to fatigue-fail and my vertical came down. One thing I wish is that I had some nearby ham buddies who could help me put up antennas. <sigh>

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

Dudley and Tim are official tech support for Flex. (They are paid by Flex.)

Really?

From http://www.flex-radio.com/About.aspx?topic=team

"Tim, W4TME is a FlexRadio Systems' Volunteer Associate"

Turns out you are right and I am wrong. I thought he was paid. I know that he set up the web site but that means he probably did that through barter.

I do know that I am NOT paid and I know that I do NOT receive any special dispensation or compensation from Flex, which was the original point.

Please Truth Only here on eham, this ain't the Flex Reflectors....

Please be very careful when you accuse me of lying. I don't lie and accusing me of lying definitely comes under the head of "fightin' words". I may be mistaken (as I was with Tim's official status) but I don't lie.

BTW, didn't you say you were kicked off the Flex reflectors?

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

BTW, didn't you say you were kicked off the Flex reflectors?

That's correct.

I actually believed you that you had been kicked off. I did check and I did find out that you unsubscribed of your own volition.

Call what you want "kicked off" dumped, eliminated, stifled, censored, the fact is I was stopped from posting on any Flexradio forum. I cancelled my subscriptions to the Flex reflectors. There was no reason to continue getting all those emails everyday if I could not reply to any of them.

It was shortly after this that I developed an "attitude" about Flexradio which continues to this day.

It does seem to me that your "attitude" started sooner than that but, no matter.

I know Tim and was a bit surprised that you had been kicked off the Flex reflectors so I asked about it. (I know you guys think I am in the thick of things at Flex but, truth is, I am not.) Tim said that you had made some "ungentlemanly comments" so he moderated your messages. You were not completely censored, just had those particular messages in that particular thread blocked. Had you not unsubscribed you would still be sending email there.

Anyway, I just wanted to understand what had happened.

It mattered not. I found little to like on the Flex Forums anyway. Just a bunch of Flex kissing fanboys trying to impress one another.

I found a home here on eham.net where one can discuss subjects freely like adults without the fear of reprisal or censorship.

Given your treatment of me here I would probably take exception to your last sentence.

Plus - Eham.net has a much larger readership than the Flex reflectors.

Perhaps. I was hoping when I came here to find others interested in talking about SDR. So far mostly it seems like a few who resist all attempts to do anything but bash Flex and anyone who might be associated with Flex. That sort of eliminates the, "like adults," part of your sentence above.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

Yeah right. How come I still cannot post or reply on the Flex Website Forums?

When I try to post or reply The Flex forum says "It's likely the forum administrator has restricted access" What part of that do you not understand? It is pretty clear to me and I just cut and pasted that TODAY after logging into the Flexradio website forum.

One cannot post if one has unsubscribed. Have you resubscribed to the Flex lists? I was under the impression you didn't want to be on the Flex lists. Now that you no longer have a Flex radio I cannot imagine why you would subscribe.

But I don't run the lists over there and I have no visibility into their status other than what ends up in my mailbox. Tim does. You would need to ask him.

Why do you feel the need to spin everything?

I don't feel a need to spin anything. I do feel a need to try to provide balance in what appears to me to be unbalanced and biased information.

I never posted ungentlemanly remarks on the reflectors. I complained Constantly about problems Flex had been ignoring for a long time. Tim did not like it. The Flex reflectors are moderated and I knew it when I signed up. Moderated = censorship and Tim exercised his right to censor me. Those are the facts. Actually Tim did me a favor. Complaining about Flexradio's shortcomings on eham gives Flexradio much needed (free) publicity.

I guess there are those who would disagree with you. I have watched things get out-of-hand on the Flex reflector on more than one occasion. (I know that I contributed negatively on more than one occasion too.) To be quite frank, it appeared to me that Tim tended to wait too long before stifling a non-useful debate/discussion. Regardless, I do remember saying to myself that I felt that you were getting out-of-hand on at least one occasion. I also know that several people sent private messages to Tim asking him to disable your ability to post. He resisted ... for awhile. But I have it from Tim that he placed you on moderation which required him to approve each of your messages, not to stop every post but to prevent you from carrying on incessantly on topics where there was nothing more to be said.

You have been a godsend too Brian.

Thank you Stan. I like you too.

Since you came to eham the posts about Flex shortcomings have soared. I do not see it ending as you always have to get the last word in...   If I was Flexradio I would beg you to stop posting on eham and cease talking with K9IUQ.

You do tend to beat the already dead horse.

I believe I have been treating you pretty good.

Really? My, my. It seems to me that your responses to me fall into a couple of general categories:

1. "He is a flex fanboi so don't listen to him."
2. "He is a teacher so don't listen to him."
3. "He says he is smart so don't listen to him."
4. "His postings are too long so don't listen to him."

You know, one can always learn something even from a source we consider to be unreliable. The trick is to pick and choose rather than rejecting out-of-hand. You reject everything I say out-of-hand which is, IMHO, unthinking-behavior.

You have attacked me since you came to eham.

Really? Huh. And I have made a concerted effort to not say what I think of your postings and try to stick to the topic. It certainly is difficult at times.

I attack your ideas and so-called "facts." I have not called you any names even tho I have no respect for you whatsoever. I do not kiss your Ambassador rear because I do not love Flexradio, deal with it.....

Oh, I deal with it just fine, thank you.  And you didn't need to tell me you have no respect for me and don't like Flex radio. You have already made that amply clear. Still, there it is out in the open. That does imply also that your postings about me and Flex are likely to be rather ... colored.

But stick with the facts and we will get along just fine. You will find that I can be quite critical of Flex and PowerSDR (as I have have been for a long time on the whole "no knobs" silliness). You will find that I am likewise intolerant of slavish adherence to any sort of party line. But you have to actually read and process what I write and not just reject. We certainly disagree on many things but, amazingly enough, we actually agree on some things too. But I must confess that I don't think that is likely you will notice. Dimitry started to notice but then he let his bias over my receipt of the Flexie award overpower his critical reasoning.

You know why I got that Flexie award? I got it for helping people. I got it for explaining things, sometimes in excruciating detail. And I like it when people say to me, "thank you."

Regardless of what you say, I am not here to do anything but what I already do on the Flex (and other) lists -- exchange information, learn new stuff, and help people who are likewise interested in learning new stuff. I have done that on the net since I started the second-ever reflector list in 1979. (FWIW I created the Info-audio mailing list on the MIT-AI machine back when it was the ARPAnet and there were fewer than 200 computers total.)

And, strange as it may seem, I really do hope we can find a way to communicate in an amicable, useful fashion.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

It was shortly after this that I developed an "attitude" about Flexradio which continues to this day.

It does seem to me that your "attitude" started sooner than that but, no matter.

Brian you are absolutely right for once. I pondered this for a while and came to the conclusion my attitude actually started when I received my Flex 5K.

OK, that is a reasonable statement. I can deal with that.

I paid $3500 for a Flex 5K. I expected it to be a very good radio for that kind of $$.
Here is what happened.

Good. Concrete things we can deal with. I am going to comment on each one. Let's see what happens. Keep an open mind and please read what I write and then try to deal with the content rather than the source.

1.The first thing I noticed was a very short 3ft 12v power cord with NO fuses in the line.

That is true but let's think about this for a moment. Everyone's shack is different. You need different sized power cable depending on your cable run. Fusing needs to be as close as possible to the source in order to protect the wiring. Placing the fuses near the radio is not particularly useful. Also, in-line 3AG fuses are a poor choice for anything over about 5A as they have excessive voltage drop. Automotive blade-type fuses are much better. (This is why the automotive industry switched.) So one way of looking at this is that the short run connected to Powerpole connectors, plugged into individually-fused jacks, is better from both safety and reduced voltage-drop reasons.

In my shacks I actually terminate the two cables separately and then plug them individually into 15A fused circuits. (For those of you who are not familiar, Flex provides a power cable with two positive and two negative leads. They do that because the pins in the molex power connector cannot handle the full load of the radio so they bring them out separately and split the current.)

2.The power on button looked like it was bought from the bargain bin at Radio Shack - it probably was.

I guess that is a matter of taste. I think it looks nice but I found the intense blue light to be, uh, overpowering. I quickly coined the term, "blue light of death," and then turned my 5000 around so that the power switch faces the wall.

3. The ATU was worthless.

I run hot and cold on this one. Sometimes the ATU has worked really well and sometimes it hasn't worked at all. This seems to be a software issue. The ATU in the Flex 5000 is actually an automatic LDG unit that Flex OEMs. The tuner works really well but the communications between PowerSDR and the tuner hasn't always worked. But you are right that Flex needs to fix this and make it right 100% of the time. It seems to be working properly now.

But I do have a complaint. PowerSDR switches the tuner to "bypass" when you change bands. IMHO it either needs to stay on once you turn it on (after all, it IS an automatic tuner) or it needs to be on or off on a per-band and per-antenna-connector basis. Flex needs to change this. Gerald has promised me that it will be dealt with in 2.1. We'll see what happens.

4. CW was worthless with the internal keyer.
5. CW was poor with an external keyer

CW has been a problem for some time. I didn't pay much attention because, as I have said, I don't operate CW. But I must admit that for my hard-core CW buddies, I have recommended the K3 over the Flex 5000. Now that Flex seems to have figured out how to do CW, this may get me to change my recommendation because I like the Flex 5000 receiver better than the K3 receiver.

5. RFI prone - BIG TIME...

It does seem that way, doesn't it? If you don't plug anything else into an Icom, Yaesu, or Kenwood radio, you can have a serious RF-in-the-shack problem and get away with it. As soon as you start plugging other things in, especially computers, all bets are off. The worst RFI-prone problem I ran across was when I was trying to run PSK at our school using the school's K2. The problem was with the sound-card and serial-port wiring between computer and radio. You should have seen the number of ferrite cores and snap-on chokes I had to use to make that work.

So the problem is not so much a function of the radio as it is a function of the computer. It just means that, if you are going to have a computer in the shack, Flex or no Flex, you need to deal with proper grounding and keeping RF out of the shack. Common-mode chokes on the feedlines and proper grounding of the feedlines where they enter the building make a world of difference to all radios.

6.160/80 Meters cw spurs.

I actually agree with you on this one. Yes, the radio did meet FCC requirements but it certainly didn't meet industry standards. I think you did hold Flex's feet to the fire on this one and you got them to change this. I applaud you for doing so. Now it is fixed.

7.ALC spikes, overdriving my AMP.

That was a weird problem. I never had a problem with the Icom IC-2KL amp I am using, strangely enough. Guys doing speaker crossovers in DSP learned this when trying to create optimal Dirac pulse response. You can't do it with minimum-phase filters, only linear-phase filters. The answer though is simple in this case, move the limiter after the filter. Fortunately that could be done in software. It would have been a different story in hardware.

8. ANF, NB,NR worthless.

I agree 100% that the NR in PowerSDR has been almost worthless. OTOH, I have never found NR to be particularly useful in any radio from the point of view of actually making a signal easier to listen to. If the signal is weak, NR doesn't make it any more intelligible. If the signal is strong, setting the RF gain to drop the apparent noise works just as well. I go back to the days of copying CW and SSB on receivers with BFOs and envelope detectors. There the standard approach was to turn the AF gain all the way up and control AF level with the RF gain. That still works for me so I don't pay much attention to NR performance. (Certainly not enough to be willing to pay money for it.)

ANF now works quite well. I was monitoring 17m phone yesterday and I was impressed with how well ANF now works. It didn't work before.

As for the noise blanker, that one has me confused because where I live, it does take the noise level down about 20dB. OTOH, it does seem to be too sensitive to narrow-band signals that are outside the passband. There is a big-gun CW station near where I live. When he gets on, even if he is 50 kHz away, his signal modulates what I am trying to listen to. I have to turn off the NB.

So I guess that I agree that the NB needs work too.

This is just off the top of my old head,there is more if I wanted to dig a little in my emails. You get the idea. $3500 for a substandard radio.

I agree that there are problems. OTOH, when used as phone or digital-mode transceiver the Flex 5000 really shines.  I run digital modes almost exclusively. I can't use NR or ANF so it doesn't bother me that they don't work well. NB is an issue so I would like that fixed. But everything else is really, really good (in my opinion). As a plain, old receiver, it is the best I have ever used.

So I don't share your opinion that it is a substandard radio, just that there are some parts of it that are substandard. You choose to focus on those parts and that makes the radio appear substandard to you. I accept that. I focus on the raw receiver performance, e.g. audio quality, filter quality, AGC quality, etc. and I find that it is substantially better than anything else I have owned or used. (And I have owned a LOT of radios.)

You are right Brian, the Flex 5K is what gave me my attitude and the whole time I was blaming Flexers. 

Oh, I guess it depends on your point of view. I can certainly understand why you feel the way you do. I just don't share that viewpoint all the time. (And I do agree with you some of the time as well.)

And FWIW, I find some of the "Flexers" annoying too. Anyone who has a problem should receive thoughtful assistance toward resolving the problem and not just, "it's your computer," or, "it's just you," answers. Those kinds of answers annoy me too. And they happen too often. Some people can be rabid about it. OTOH, I have always seen Dudley provide professional, thoughtful, and complete support. That appears to me to be the official Flex company policy. So I would counsel you to focus your response to individuals and not to paint everyone and Flex with the same brush.

But, sometimes it IS the computer or the operator. The person having the problem needs to be able to accept that assessment when it is true no matter how frustrated they are at that moment.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

Please be very careful when you accuse me of lying. I don't lie and accusing me of lying definitely comes under the head of "fightin' words". I may be mistaken (as I was with Tim's official status) but I don't lie.

Do not threaten me. I did not call you a liar. I said Truth Only on eham.net.

I am not threatening you. I am just being emphatic about not liking it. I will put up with being called many things but this is one where I draw the line.

You have been mistaken many times in your posts here on eham, indeed you seem to make a habit of it. You do not research what you post. You spin, opine, and have many times distributed mistaken untruths on eham.net. I have called you on it many times and have provided facts to back up my assertions.

This being a conversational medium, I don't research my answers the way I do when writing a paper. I rely on memory and, frankly, it isn't as good as it once was. Still, there are ways there ways to suggest that someone is mistaken. Your approach assumes that my mistakes are intentional and intended to mislead, i.e. you are calling me a liar.

But let's look at if from your point of view. What would Brian have to gain by lying? He doesn't derive his living from Flex so he is not going to get raise from the boss. Lies are also easy to disprove so there is no advantage to him to lie. Also, when he is proven wrong he ends up looking stupid. (Yeah, that bothers me.) So, why would Brian do something to intentionally make himself look stupid? So think about it.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

You know why I got that Flexie award?

Sure.

“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BULL.…” -W. C. Fields”


LMAO
Stan K9IUQ
 

Yeah, you are certainly working on that adult interaction thing. I don't know why I try to talk to you.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL

[WB6RQN]

I don't know why I try to talk to you.

I am that "Bad Boy" student you want to change.    

Stan K9IUQ

You betcha!  Now you have to stay after school and clean the erasers.

73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL