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Author Topic: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"  (Read 17496 times)

K0OD

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KF6QEX

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2010, 06:46:19 PM »

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Gulp!

Some words sound a lot more profound when you don't know the exact meaning and proper usage :)

I did read the "article" if one could call it that (it's more of a propaganda leaflet that 60-70 years ago would have been printed on yellow paper and thrown from planes over enemy cities).

I decided to leave it alone unless it was brought up. I also didn't want to publicise the blog's address. But since the cat is out of the bag so to speak, I am ready.

Although I don't know K9IUQ personally , we've had a couple of verbal spars here on eham and from what I can tell a "misanthrope" he is not.

As for OY claiming he is not a "choir boy" for flex, it's hard to claim objectivity and impartiality when his website is prominently linked from the Flex website.

I kinda wish flex radio sells it's hardware technology to a non ham radio related company already, so we can go back to having something more fun to talk about instead or commenting on  W9OY's slanderous mishaps.




 



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KF6QEX

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2010, 06:48:51 PM »

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I have not listened to the recording yet,
It's a combination of an auctioneer's loose false teeth and a three year old trying to make music by hitting forks on a plate. :)

 
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K0OD

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2010, 11:33:50 AM »

Flex has always encouraged bug reports and responds to problems. I'm not sure what
W9OY's "radio as religion" goal is, but his attack polarizes discussion and creates
critics who are more strident. It discourages users from coming forward with comments
that might lead to a better radio.

'OY sees a "know-it-all old fart pissing contest." Most of us saw a spirited and helpful
discussion about an excellent radio that isn't quite perfect yet.

--
By the way, my 5000 works well on CW aside from the oft-mentioned annoying
"squelch tail or pop" on the higher bands, especially six meters. I use the 5000's
sidetone rather than the one in my logikeyer.   
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N7BUI

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2010, 08:03:55 AM »

I've owned two SDR-1000's, a Flex-3000, and a Flex-1500.  All computers that I've used have exhibited this CW lag in the software.  It certainly has been improved as the new versions have been cranked out.  That is why the fastest computer possible should be ran with the Flex's.  The beta 2.0x version sent out with the 1500 was really bad for the lag on my machine.  Plus the CW monitor was stuck at full volume and couldn't be controlled.  I understand that a fix has been made, but it requires a firmware upgrade to the 1500. 

The SDR concept is a great tool/toy but I finally got bored with upgrading the software so often to my rigs.  I've sold all of my Flex's and am using separate SDR receivers now. With Ham Radio Deluxe it's very easy to synchronize the receivers to any modern radio. 
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K0OD

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2010, 12:55:24 PM »

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but I finally got bored with upgrading the software so often to my rigs.
 
Flex has been churning out PSDR upgrades lately on a 2 week cycle. 2.0.8 a few days ago is the latest. No new features, just fixes, many for the new 1500. They are close to the official release of PSDR 2.

I've done four minor upgrades in < two months. These aren't cumbersome SVN installs. The new upgrades are easy, fast, reliable.

I'd love doing them EXCEPT they haven't reduced any of my radio's minor problems. But it is reassuring to see this whirlwind of coding activity from Flex.   
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W6UV

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2010, 06:40:45 PM »

All of the recent effort has been towards the 1500 which has many bugs. The 5000a still has many bugs also but 5000a owners are not complaining like the newer 1500 owners. The old squeaking wheel gets the grease mentality....

So what else is new?

This is standard practice in the software industry. Very few development organizations have the discipline needed to wring all of the serious bugs out of their products before releasing them. There's just too much emphasis on features, features, features, and quality suffers as a result.

Another common practice, that also seems to have been adopted by Flex, is to use the user base as a QA organization through the release of thinly disguised alpha software that should never see the light of day outside of the development lab.
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W4PC

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2010, 12:02:04 PM »

All of the recent effort has been towards the 1500 which has many bugs. The 5000a still has many bugs also but 5000a owners are not complaining like the newer 1500 owners. The old squeaking wheel gets the grease mentality....

So what else is new?

This is standard practice in the software industry. Very few development organizations have the discipline needed to wring all of the serious bugs out of their products before releasing them. There's just too much emphasis on features, features, features, and quality suffers as a result.

Another common practice, that also seems to have been adopted by Flex, is to use the user base as a QA organization through the release of thinly disguised alpha software that should never see the light of day outside of the development lab.

So you expect a company of 15 people to be able to have bug free software?  Even Microsoft with it's 32,000 people.. many of those are development and QA, can't even do that.  IBM can't do that. No company can do that, not even hardware companies.

Look at Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, they all have issues and problems in hardware, as well as design flaws in the hardware.

Back in the early '90s, IBM had OEMed processor chips from Cyrix (now defunt), we couldnt figure out why PC-Mos was failing on only that processor until we put an ICE on it and found out there was a masking but error in the MICROCODE of the processor.  Bad code from IBM.  The big boys. (this was before they and MSFT split).

Do hams really expect small ham companies to be able to do things even the BIG companies cant do, which is bug free software AND get great service and low prices? Take Ford, GM, Toyota for example for hardware.  Toyota had a 'little' design flaw in the defective accelerator pedals.   

So why dont you apply to be their QA person? Which methodolgy would you use to QA the software and hardware? Do you know which model they are using for the software development cycle? Seems you could help them if you have done it before.

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W6UV

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2010, 03:56:24 PM »

So you expect a company of 15 people to be able to have bug free software?  Even Microsoft with it's 32,000 people.. many of those are development and QA, can't even do that.  IBM can't do that. No company can do that, not even hardware companies.
Who said anything about bug free software? I was commenting on the fact that many companies put so much emphasis on features that they have no resources left to squish bugs.

Here's an analogy (groan...): Suppose you live in a house that has all the basics- bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, but that's about it. You've always wanted a game room where you could put your large screen TV, pool table, foosball table, etc., so you decide to knock down a wall and start building the game room addition of your dreams. In the mean time, your kitchen is just crawling with roaches and every morning when you get out of bed you have to brush the bed bugs off yourself. What would you tackle first, exterminating the bugs that have been making your life a hell on earth, or building the game room? (I know what I'd do first...)

I don't have a Flex radio yet, but I have played with PowerSDR in demo mode. I've encountered many issues that cause either an unhandled exception error or a total application crash. And this was just in about an hour of use. So we're not taking about eradicating every last bug as you seen to imply, but bugs severe enough to cause crashes. No software company, I don't care how large or small, should ever let software like that outside their doors. It's not professional, unless the software is clearly labeled as alpha and the users have been warned.
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K0OD

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2010, 06:16:23 PM »

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I have yet to have an unhandled exception error

I get them often and with every recent PSDR beta upgrade. 

Agree that complaining about the demo is silly. How much effort should Flex put into a free demo that most people use for 30 minutes or so? They admit its flaky and doesn't (didn't) work with some operating systems.

My demo had very low output on transmit :) 
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W6UV

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2010, 09:41:29 PM »

Agree that complaining about the demo is silly. How much effort should Flex put into a free demo that most people use for 30 minutes or so?

Then remove the bloody thing! It's obviously doing them more harm than good if potential customers encounter multiple crashes in the demo. If the demo does not reflect the stability of the software when used with real hardware, it's a bigger liability than asset.
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W6UV

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2010, 08:50:38 AM »

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I have yet to have an unhandled exception error
I get them often and with every recent PSDR beta upgrade. 

You need a better computer or someone like me to tweak your present one.  :D

How do you get rid of unhandled exception errors by "tweaking" a computer? These happen because the coders didn't write an exception handler to handle exception conditions in the code. No amount of tweaking a PC will eliminate these.
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K0OD

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #12 on: August 26, 2010, 09:15:52 AM »

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With NO tweaking whatsoever this computer blasts PSDR with a PSDR cpu percent of 4 to 6. DPC's are 50-200.

I get about the same excellent readings (with only the radio going). I use a virgin Neal Campbell machine designed for Flex use. But I do get the crashes where I have to reboot the machine. That takes a few minutes. Usually happens when I'm not at the radio. (left on overnight for example). But it has happened once or twice during a Q. 

BTW, is there a faster way to deal with an XP Unhandled Exception rather than shutting everything down? Using the task manager doesn't seem to help

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K0OD

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #13 on: August 26, 2010, 05:31:57 PM »

Neal Campbell had recommended XP when I bought my machine from him last September.  Although you don't have Unhandled Exception crashes and "squelch tails" that I suffer, you have other major problems on CW that I don't have.

Confused!

I need to research Win 7 on the Flex reflectors.  Anyone else prefer Windows 7?

 
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KU2US

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RE: "I got into a recent pissing contest over on EHAM"
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2010, 06:38:48 AM »

Here we go with the political crap. My two cents- Fox news is fair and balanced more so than any one else. CBS,NBC,ABC,NPR,MSNBC are NOT, just mouthpieces for socialism. The flex radio? some like it, some dont. I wouldnt care for one. Just give me a square box with knobs and some wire..I just have a hard time looking at my computer screen and calling it a radio. To each his/her own.
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