| W9BB |
Rating:  |
2023-03-06 | |
| BEST SDR VALUE FOR THE MONEY |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| This would be my 6th Flex radio and for the money hands down the best value for the money. Thanks to KE9NS software this radio is like operating a new radio, Thanks to KE9NS the radio has amazing features ( and its free ) I can say if you want to dabble with sdr on a budget start here . |
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| 2E0OKC |
Rating: |
2021-11-21 | |
| more of an update than a review windows 11 |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
hello all. we all know the flex 3000 is a great radio and as time has moved on so has the computers and the Windows operating system. this is my 3rd flex 3000 and was just giving it another go as it was cheap and I do like the SDR side of things.
I can tell you that I do have the flex 3000 radio running on windows 11 using power sdr 2.7.2 at first I used a ti chipset PCI card that did work but it was a bit intermittent so I got the via chipset PCI card and that is working fine, you have to update your graphic card drivers to windows 11 don't rely on the windows driver. for me, everything works fine. the pc is not major high end, only using i5 10400 processor 16Gb ram but not needed that amount. the power SDR program is showing CPU 2.6% when running. I added this info just in case there were some people who wanted this type of radio but worried it would not work with the up to date O/S windows, can say yes it works, happy days
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| N2DTS |
Rating: |
2019-05-27 | |
| great for the money! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This is my 3rd one, got it really cheap, and it works fantastic on a good computer ($300.00 used I7 with 8 gig sand a solid state drive).
Runs 6 to 8% cpu, latency is real time, the antenna tuner works for real (unlike the ic7300), great fidelity, RX and TX bandwidth can be whatever you want, filters can be whatever you want, cw seems great, all at a very low price.
I put the radio in a small cabinet and can not hear the fan.
Everything is adjustable, the KE9NS software adds nice features over the standard psdr from flex, so a used radio is even better then a new one was!
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Earlier 5-star review posted by N2DTS on 2011-11-29
Love the radio. You need a good computer to run sdr, but its worth it.
The various displays are great, you can see where signals are, what they are, how wide they are, how strong they are, other radios are just blind.
Filters work great, drag and drop, click on a signal and hear it, the automatic antenna tuner now works great. I am sure there will be other (free) upgrades in the software. The 3000 seems just as good as the 5000 in performance, the main difference is the 96 KHz vs 192 KHz you can see on the 5000.
I managed to blow out 1/2 my output transistors when my computer went nuts after trying the amplifier. The RF got into the computer because its cheap junk and I did not take steps to keep it out, not really flex radios fault. I called flex, they had me run a diag on the transmitter and it indicated a bad output device.
Flex sent me out a new 3000 within an hour, even though I told them it was my fault the rig got damaged, the day before Thanksgiving. I got a free return shipping label, they did not ask me to send it back for repair, or exchange, that is customer service, unheard of these days.
I started out using the cheapest computer you can buy, single core low end computer, and it ran the radio fine at reduced settings. I got a new cheap but faster computer and the rig runs great, even on CW, seems real time to me, no real delay.
On both computers, the radio installed in under 10 minutes with zero problems, I just made sure to get a firewire card with a TI chipset off amazon for $20.00 (Roswell PCIe).
I had a 5000 in the past, and loved it, but sold it for motorcycle money, and just can not go back to not being able to see and control everything like you can on the flex stuff, it just seems WRONG. Yes, there are more things they can do with the software, and the fans do make noise at times, but its really a great radio from a great company.
If you have a good computer, the 3000 is a great buy, lots of rig for the money.
If you do not have a good computer, you can get a great one (quad core) for $400.00 at wall mart.
If you run an amplifier, just make sure to RF proof the computer, the keyboard and mouse wires can pick up RF and make the computer do all sorts of crazy stuff in strong RF fields.
My setup works best not grounding the computer but using clamp on rf killers on all the wires.
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| K4FX |
Rating: |
2018-02-22 | |
| Excellent |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I owned a SDR-1000 some years ago, and I must say the SDR radios have come a long way. I purchased this Flex 3000 a couple of months ago, and was pleased to see that it was basically plug and play. I have only played with it a couple of weeks and I am still learning. I have it on all modes, talking to my logging software, pretty slick. CW is smooth, no issues. After using this one I really want to try a 6000 series Flex. These are great rigs and with the new 6000's coming out there are many 3000 and 5000's available at really good prices. |
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| GM8GIQ |
Rating: |
2018-02-06 | |
| EXCELLENT ALL ROUND |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Acquired a FLEX 3000 at a good price, was running a TS2000 at the time which has since been sold. Have owned a few tx/rx in the past including TS480,FT897, FT817s,TS2000 but none come anywhere near the performance of the FLEX.
Run it on an HP workstation with Firewire down (VIA chipset), virtual audio cables and virtual com ports no RFI or pick up issues at all. Also use the excellent PowerSDR software from KE9NS and currently use Version 2.8.0.66.
Pros are the RX performance and in particular the filter selections. Ease of use with a transverter.
Only con so far is the auto ATU which is slow and reluctant sometimes to auto tune.
Must be the best bang for the buck on the 2nd hand market. If you get the chance of one jump at it, its a keeper. |
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| N8WGM |
Rating: |
2018-02-04 | |
| Excellent receive and transmit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Just got a new to me Flexradio 3000. Got it at a pretty good price. Using PowerSDR v 2.8.0.66 software. Thank you KE9NS!
I had issues at first......got a new fire wire card and found out after a bunch of hours that it was no good....so off the Microcenter to get another card.
If you get a message when installing the radio to your computer that says that there is no connection, then check the fire wire card...it may be faulty.
Installation is fairly easy. The download of the KE9NS PowerSDR software is easy and well worth it. Far better than the software officially supported by FLexradio. If you download from the KE9NS site, everything you need will download to your computer. When installing fresh, use the orange download button on the KE9NS site....if upgrading from other versions of PowerSDR, then use the green download button on the KE9NS site.
I highly recommend getting a high quality fire wire cable from Granite Digital. That and snap on ferrite beads from DX Engineering. The Flexradio 3000 system using the fire wire connection is prone to RFI.....and so best to cut off that problem with quality RFI suppression. A good ground is also mandatory.
Receive with the 3000 is awesome. It does not take a back seat to the newer Flexradio 6000 series. I am getting excellent audio reports using a highly modified Marshal MXL990 mic with a Yamaha mixer and an Ibox W2IHY adapter.
My first SDR was an Elad FDM duo.....a very nice radio...but QRP. I wanted a full power SDR and so the 3000 Flex is now a very good deal used and is in demand. Get over the Fire Wire situation and suppress the RFI and you will really love this radio combines with the KE9NS PowerSDR software. |
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| W5WAA |
Rating: |
2017-08-04 | |
| Most radio per dollar... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have been using Flex 1500 for years, decided to "move up" to the 3000. Was a good decision, there is not a lot of difference in the two radios, except for the 100 watt output and a slight improvement in features, but does perform better.
Like many hams I spend a lot of time researching new equipment. I realized that since it is on the first page of the Sherwood Engineering equipment tests, there is only a handful of radios above it, most of them costing considerable more. So as I quit looking and discovered a free undated software created by a ham (KE9NS), it fixed a lot of things and made it even better.
So I won't be looking for any new equipment for a long time. Almost bought an Icom 7300, but couldn't deal with the tiny touch screen when I've been using a 22 inch monitor for my Flex equipment. The 3000 is getting hard to come by, prices continue to rise on the used market. |
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| N1ERF |
Rating: |
2016-12-24 | |
| Great - Even if obsolete |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I originally got this radio a year before FRS stopped production of it because of EOL.
The pleasure of using it was rejuvenated when Darren KE9NS began writing add-on features & improvements a while back. His work made using the radio even more fun.
His software plugs into the existing (FRS last software release - PowerSDR 2.7.2). Anyone that hasn't upgraded would be happy to discover the new added features.
His webpage: http://www.ke9ns.com/flexpage.html#GPLREV
I for one am thankful for his extraordinary work on it. Those that haven't installed this add-on should make an effort to do so. You won't have any regrets. |
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| F5LHF |
Rating: |
2016-12-24 | |
| Great rig |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought mine used a month ago. That's an outstanding value for the money and it would certainly be my first choice today.
I got very good reports in SSB on 40 m, but my main interest is QRP and digital modes. The virtual com port and the 2 virtual audio ports were very easy to set up. I'm using PowerSDR 2.7.2 and WSJT-X without any problem, using a normal PC (G645, 8 Go RAM).
I recommend it highly.
And if you need some help for the set up, drop me an email. I would be pleased to help you.
73 and merry Christmas,
Thierry - F5LHF. |
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| W1XWX |
Rating: |
2015-11-28 | |
| Why 3 out of 5? |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This is a follow up review of the Flex 3000 which I have now owned for about 2 years.
Yes you must setup 2 virtual com ports and 2 virtual audio ports to make the radio function properly. This is VERY easy to do. Once set-up properly the radio functions perfectly without any issues. The software is fully mature and also runs very well using Windows 10.
I usually run JT65 which the Flex 3000 does without any additional hardware. All the various versions run just fine. For PSK31 I usually use FLdigi which also runs fine. On SSB I get excellent audio reports using the built in equalizer and a Heil PR 781 microphone. The computer I am using is a 4 year old HP desktop quad core, with 6 gigs of memory.
I installed a TI chipped Firewire card which I bought from Fry's in Garland, Texas for about $39.
The only "real" issues are that the noise reducer does not work very well but by using other controls in the interface such as the AGC-T which acts like an RF gain noise can be reduced to a very low level. On the other hand the noise blanker seems to work just fine on various different noise sources. PowerSDR version 2.7.2.
Right now the used prices for this radio are around $1000 which makes this 100 watt transceiver an outstanding value. You will be amazed at the filters, the visual panadapters, and the receive quality which is right up there with the best high cost receivers.
My Flex 3000 has run almost daily for the last 2 years without any problems. As you may know it also has an auto tuner built in which tunes most any antenna even my 127 ft end fed long wire.
I can recommend this radio (used) for your consideration EVEN as a first HF radio. You will not be sorry you purchased it.
73,
Joe Lalumia
W1XWX
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