| N9CHM |
Rating:  |
2023-08-20 | |
| EXCELLENT..even after 10yrs |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Today is the 10th Anniversary of my 6500 Ltd. I put down $1000 a year before (in 2012), sight unseen, as this was the 1st of the 6000 series to be offered. Sold several other radios and moved to FLEX, never looked back (also have a 6400 which replaced a 6300). The radio is still "top of the line" in my book, even after 10yrs. I do think the audio from the 6300, 6500 & 6700 sounds smoother than the newer 6K radios, based on audio reports I get while using the same mic-PR781, on either the 6400 or 6500. It seems looking through the eHam reviews, others feel the same way. It has performed flawlessly, only failing due to a bad SD card (this was last May, 2022). Requested to send it in, got an RMA# in just 1 day. FLEX added a new 4GB SD card with 3.3.29. To my surprise..they also replaced the small fans on the FPGA and CPU with new, improved fans. They added all the needed engineering change orders (ECOs), re-calibrated the radio, ran functional test, did an overnight burn in and tested again and finished up with a factory reset. FLEX did all of this at NO CHARGE, including shipping, both ways (1 week door to door). It's not often you find this kind of support for a then, 9yr old radio. Looking forward to the next 10 years with FLEX. |
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| W8NVC |
Rating: |
2022-04-30 | |
| upgraded from 6300 |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had 3 Flex 5000As and a two Flex 6300s. I loved all of them, especially the 5000a. The 6300 is incredible. Now, I have upgraded to a Flex 6500. Boy, the huge difference on the RX compared to the 6300.
It's smoother RX and the filters are truly brick walls. I never thought there would be such a huge difference but, there truly is. It's the kind of difference that you would have to own both to see and compare. I love the 6500 and I am sure gonna love the 6700 when one comes my way. I am very fortunate to have a ham radio dealer for a best friend and I get deals on my stuff. I get to try all the new radios and test them. It's a wonderful hobby and he is a wonderful friend. It's like having HRO for your best friend. I love ya david...
But this Flex 6500? It's the best radio I have ever owned. Nothing is perfect but, The Flex 6500 is close. Go buy one and you will see. The 6300 is a great radio but, The 6500 is much better if you can afford to upgrade. Seems to me that newer 6400 and 6600 can't compare? I have heard them on the air and the lack of audio that I hear from the 6300s, 6500ss,and 6700 is just not the same. Now please guy's this is only my opinion. I am not cutting anyone down that owns a 6400 or 6600 but from what I read and watch the Qrz and Qth classifieds and I can't help but notice.
I see the 6400s 6600s for sale and then later see the same hams posting WTB or looking for a 6300, 6500, 6700.
Perhaps this is just coincidence? But with the 6500, Flex did it right! Thank you Flex for an enjoyable radio with incredible RX and transmit audio. And I can go on. One other thing for the amateur that want to move to SDR. Yes it's a learning curve but, the best thing I have found is that It puts a lot of things about ham radio in perspective. But the biggest rule and the most important thing when buying and using an HF radio is the receiver. It must be great. I don't care what you toss at it or ad to it, If the RX sucks then the radio has no business in my shack. Now as for my new 6500, I can honestly say that it is in fact the best HF radio I have owned since I became a ham . And I have been through a lot of radios. I buy it, try it, some leave my QTH faster then they come. Others such as the 5000As and I had 3 of them stayed. The 6300 stayed and is a real winner also but, this 6500 has blown me away. There is such a night and day difference in RX. The kind of RX I have always wanted. I look forward to my next Flex and yes, it will be a 6700. If you want the best in SDR in my opinion, ya can't go wrong with Flex. Thanks for reading FLEXERS! |
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| 9A5EAT |
Rating: |
2021-12-08 | |
| Great radio ! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
After owning a Flex 6400 (which was very dissappointing) I purchased a pre-loved Flex 6300 (good product!) and upgraded now to the Flex 6500 (Limited Edition with GPS-option).
After all my previous experiences I could really jump into 6500-tests pretty fast. It is simply the best Flex I have had so far. Receiver has an amazing sound, very quite - may be also due to the much higher sampling rate or extended audio circuits. Increased IMD due to the build-in preselector. RX should be same as Flex 6700.
The TX delivers super clean signals (-45 dBc @ 5W) and audio sounds superb even after amplification.
As a pre-owned version it was very affordable! Best performance so far from Flex! Strong recommendation! |
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| K4PIH |
Rating: |
2021-01-21 | |
| FLEX 6500, not worth the cost |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Different model. I have 4 FLEX 6500 with one Maestro interface. Out of the 4 purchased, 2 of them suffer from the voltage regulator failure. The one I use on a daily basis with a Maestro has issues and constantly reboots. If it does eventually settle down, the Maestro display is vertical instead of horizontal and to see it you have to lay your head sidewise or turn the Maestro on end. In that condition. the display will only show one of the 4 capable cuts due t the restricted view. It is possible to restart several times and may eventually get the Maestro display to show correctly. I tried contacting Flex for help and I was told I had to ship them back and have a credit card handy. I found out about the voltage regulator issue not from Flex but from other hams who own Flex'. From others I also learned how to put the 6500 into test mode and read the error messages, of which there are many. I'm in the process of replacing all the Flex. |
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| K8HU |
Rating: |
2020-06-18 | |
| Not much more than a TS-440 with a spectral display |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| There is/was certainly a lot of conversation generated by the Flex 6000 series radios. Bought the 6500 solely because it had bandpass filters before the front end of the receiver. As one who has owned a number of SDR general coverage receivers over a 10+ year period including the Microtelecom Perseus and WinRadio G-33DDC Excalibur pro. I was expecting more than what arrived. The GUI is, at best, "klunky" and not very intuitive. Rather than to review the plusses and minuses point by point, I'll summerize the ownership experience in one word: underwhealmed. |
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| KO1C |
Rating: |
2020-06-06 | |
| Tired of Flex Being Non-Responsive To Needed Fixes |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Bought the Flex 6500, paid and installed V2 of SmartSDR. Bought the dongle for FreeDV and D-Star, it worked well.
Then SmartSDR upgraded again to a higher V2 level so I upgraded. Big mistake. Now the FreeDV/D-Star dongle no longer works. $100 + down the drain. Flex keeps promising to fix it, not sure it will be in my lifetime.
Noise blanker doesn't work, this is unbelievable.
V3 of SmartSDR changed how profiles worked. To me, a profile should be like a bookmark in your web browser. It should take you to the same place EVERY TIME!!
But in V3 of SmartSDR (maybe not so smart anymore) if you use a profile to go to your favorite 80 meter net, then when the net is done, you go down to 20 meters to check it out, guess where you're going to end up at the next time you select the profile for your 80 meter net -- straight to 20 meters. ENJOY!!
Seriously, you can buy better radios that are far better supported for a $1000 less.
I would NOT recommend this radio until Flex gets their software act together.
David KO1C
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| K0BAK |
Rating: |
2019-10-28 | |
| surprised by contest results |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I've used second-hand Flex radios since I started operating in 2014, so discount this review if you wish. I had been using a Flex 3000 in my rover vehicle, but it was flaky (lockups and stuck TX) with my old underpowered Firewire-capable laptop. A club member sold me his used 6500, which immediately gave me a big reliability boost because the laptop was no longer taxed and it just needs an Ethernet connection. I was also looking forward to a vastly simplified relay switching interface for my amps and transverters because of the 6500's programmable USB-to-TTL interface cables.
What I didn't expect was much better contest performance. Operating mobile in the PA and NY QSO parties, my scores improved by almost a factor of 3. I operated from the same locations for about the same amount of time, and used the same screwdriver antenna and medium power amplifier. The only major change to my station was the Flex 6500, and band conditions certainly weren't better (probably worse based on others' complaints). I would never have guessed that a radio change could make that much difference in contest performance, but I can't explain the improvement any other way. I'm guessing the receiver is so much better that my pileups continued where in the past I might have quit CQing and gone to S&P. Almost all my time was spent CQing, which is definitely a new experience in these contests.
I may never make use of features like easy remote use over the internet or creating multiple virtual radios, but easy interfacing and way better receiving performance more than justifies my second-hand purchase. |
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| N4TT |
Rating: |
2019-04-30 | |
| Research |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Radio: 5/5
SSDR: 2/5
Company: 3/5
Community: 1/5
The description says four fully independent receivers. That's one way to look at. Other way is that it is one very wide band receiver with four sliding windows. But that's a nit. If something like this supports your workflow then it's the cat's meow.
Spend some time on the Flex Community website and do some research. See what others are saying and make your decision on what is important to you.
If state of the art receiver specs are the key then the 6x00 is the radio I think. But if you are looking for that refined, silky smooth experience that comes from a radio with a long heritage, you're just a little close to the cutting edge for that.
What are you looking for in a radio? Comfort food (Icom/Kenwood/Yaesu/Elecraft) or Red Bull (Flex). If you don't mind getting tripped up to get some amazing features... Flex.
Check into the software updates and the licensing structure and see if you can deal with it. Some love it, some hate it (I'm a hater) but best you go in there with eyes wide open. My perspective, core functions and bugs are not fixed before new major releases are made available at $200 each with the option that you can take it or leave it. Ya, tell a ham he doesn't have to upgrade and see how well that works for ya. I have to believe this will change eventually. The latest upgrade involved an API overhaul which rendered add-on software partially unsupported. There are subtleties you should understand and accept before you buy.
I also own the 6700 (basically 2 receivers with 8 sliding windows - freaking wild) and a Maestro, kind of a reduced-capability laptop PC with some knobs on it. The 6500, though no longer made, is the anchor radio that all others can use for comparison.
The community is a rats nest of cheering blobs of icky fanboism and criticism that is usually crushed without mercy. I suggest you read the community posts - but consider carefully whether you want to join the community. There are options that are more open to discussion I think.
Company? Detached. There's a few people that seem to be hung out there to listen to the unwashed masses and you can often get someone on the telephone but, unlike Elecraft's list, you won't get much meaningful insider participation. The owner gets on sometimes to give his reasons for the way things are. Still, there's no discussion of features with insiders. Alpha testers have to pay for the privilege of testing, and then the whole community are the beta testers also paying for the new feature (v2 remote access, v3 multilink). Only the worse of bugs are ever addressed and complaints still exist from the earliest versions.
My final words and I'll drop it. The radio is in two parts. There's the hardware that does all the processing on board and the client (SSDR) that is basically responsible for the presentation. The radio... state of the art gold. The software? Maybe there's impressive stuff going on under the hood but it is glitchy and tired (kind of like me). I think someone is going to come along with an amazing client to put on top of this radio some day. So far, it's been a miss. |
|
| GM0ELP |
Rating: |
2018-11-03 | |
| Happy |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Ex Elecraft K3 Owner. Contester (non-serious). CW mode 90%.
Bad:
1) It takes several months to fine tune your network and station to get satisfactory contest results.
2) I would not recommend this transceiver to non-competent network/computer users.
3) I would not recommend this transceiver for serious contesting due to whole package reliabilty/complexity (high RF and high dependency IT networks rarely play nicely together).
4) I would not recommend this radio for field use as ruggedness isn't great (heatsinks not securely fastened, fans are noisy and failure prone etc).
5) Latency is an issue when brick wall filtering is required.
6) DSP Features for handling noise etc are poor compared to most other radios.
7) Flexradio SSDR software is constantly evolving, but after many years is still full of bugs that seem to take years to fix.
8) Flexradio decides the bug fix priority not the users.
9) Poor implementation of PTT in CW mode.
Good:
1) SSDR Panafall is the best there is.
2) Receiver is sensitive (AGC-T rocks!).
3) Filters are adjustable from low latency wide to high latency brick wall.
4) Compatibility with external data mode applications is great and performance is better than conventional radios due to complete digital audio path.
5) Low station cabling necessary as all comms are through one ethernet cable.
6) Easy remote station operation without extra equipment.
7) Compatibility with most contest loggers.
8) Availability of SSDR for IOS or Windows.
9) SSDR emulation of K1EL keyer.
10) Good full break-in implementation (quiet change-over).
11) Full SDR direct sampling technology for resultant audio output and not hybrid 9MHz IF mixer inferior technology from the other big three (current latest and announced transceivers).
The above score is based on the 6500 not being Great!(5), but certainly being Good!(4). I do not want to use any of my other transceivers in the shack and I also do not covet any other transceiver on the market today. Well done Flexradio! |
|
| WK2Y |
Rating: |
2017-04-14 | |
| Just a wonderful radio |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I have had my Flex 6500 for just about a year now, and it would be understatement, by a wide margin, to say I have been thrilled with it. Before I get into details about why, let me provide a little background and make a suggestion to anyone who is on the fence about getting an SDR. I was first licensed in 1971 and have had a variety of knob radios over the years. When I got close to retirement, I promised myself a top of the line radio for my retirement gift to myself. I mulled over all the arguments about knob based versus SD radios for quite a long time. What finally convinced me to go with an SDR was my purchase of an inexpensive SDR receiver\dongle. I hadn’t purchased it to help me in the decision process, but it took no time at all for me to see the advantages of being able to see the signals and adjust filters precisely to the desired signal. And, I also learned how easy it is to get used to using a software interface. In very short order, I was finding and tuning in signals much more quickly than I ever had been using a knob based radio. If you are having trouble deciding, then consider purposefully taking my inadvertent approach. I am certain you will be convinced in short order like I was.
Setup for the rig was painless. Unpack, connect the power, antenna, and Ethernet cable to the PC, download and install the software, and away you go. Not a hitch. The SmartSDR software was very intuitive. Once I was setup, then I really started to learn the advantages of the rig. I typically have, simultaneously, one receiver slice open to monitor PSK using Ham Radio Deluxe, another for JT65, and a third for SSB or CW. I could open a fourth slice but 3 seems to be enough for this addled retired brain. (Indeed, I made the mistake early on of not checking to see what slice was transmitting and blasted a PSK frequency with my SSB CQ.) Having the large support community available (a large motivating factor in my purchase of the Flex versus other SDR) made interfacing all the different software packages relatively easy. The filtering and signal processing are darned amazing. If you have an interfering signal, you just slide or adjust the receive window until it’s out of the pass band. No guessing and it is gone. That alone would be worth the price, but the number of features built into the software, keyer, audio equalizer, digital signal processing, profiles, notch filters (truly amazing), etc, etc. only enhance the value.
Both the rig’s firmware and the software are updated on a regular basis. The fear always is that something will stop working after the update. In the year that I have owned the machine, there have been several updates and none have caused a problem.
One final note: I am not a contest operator. I can see huge advantages of the Flex if I were. None the less, I don’t consider the 6500 to be overkill for me. Even as a casual operator, I am able to take advantage of the features it offers, and it makes it a pleasure to operate. No buyer’s remorse or guilt here whatsoever.
I am happy to answer specific questions should you have them.
73,
Bob
WK2Y
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