I own a FlexRadio 6400, and overall, I’m quite happy with it. It’s probably the best-performing radio that I’ve ever used, Having said that, it’s not perfect.
Recently, Flex released an update to SmartSDR, and for some folks, the update caused their radios to quit working. This appears to be happening for those who haven’t installed new SD cards in their radios. SDR card corruption is a known problem for some FlexRadios.
There has also been some discontent with the speed at which Flex addresses bugs in the software and releases new features. This prompted one fellow to post to [email protected]:
I’ve had my 6400M for a couple of years now and have seen very few new features added to it (smartcontrol & memory functions)via software update. Most software updates have centered around fixing bugs. This platform has so many possibilities, but Flex is not living up to the hype of its advertising. It’s more like new software = same old radio OR new software = brick your radio.
I replied:
I agree with Dennis that the FlexRadio platform has a lot of potential, and I’m a little surprised that there aren’t more third-party developers. I think that there maybe be two reasons for that:
- FlexRadios aren’t cheap. As a result, maybe there aren’t enough of them out there for a third-party developer to make any money developing third-party apps. I’m thinking that’s the reason that Flex themselves haven’t added more features. The return on investment just isn’t there.
- Developing this kind of software is hard. It takes a lot of expertise and a lot of time. I thought about trying to develop a better Free DV waveform after reading about its limitations somewhere. I quickly realized, however, that I currently do not have the skills to do that, nor do I want to spend the time developing those skills.
Does the Flex live up to its hype? I’d say so, but I can see how some users could be disappointed. Nothing’s perfect, however. I guess that if you want something that’s more plug and play, you should get something like an ICOM IC-7610.
I’ve decided to wait a bit before upgrading my SmartSDR software. That should give things time to settle down a bit.
Gareth - M5KVK says
Whilst I agree with just about all you say, Dan, I think Flex must take a bit of a hit on this one.
Having spent many years as a software engineer, I feel Flex dropped the ball with this latest release. Actually, not so much the release itself, but the number they chose – 3.3.29.
If it was known that this could cause problems, and involved an update to the file system, at the very least it should have been 3.4.0, or something like that. That way, users would be alerted to this not being a bug-fix but a feature upgrade.
Personally, I would have numbered it 4.0.0 as the update was irreversible.
Larry NM7A says
I think if people started asking Flex some pointed questions about software licensing and their policy towards open-source, they would be surprised. I have dabbled for almost 20 years with the DttSP software that is the core of SmartSDR and PowerSDR before it. A few years ago, I asked Flexradio for the DttSP source code, which at the time was under a GNU license as far as I know. They refused to give me the software directly, but wanted to know what versions I wanted. This was a difficult question, since I did not have the software, I did not know what versions existed. That’s not really the point though; what is that Flex at the time exhibited a close-source mindset and only grudgingly wanted to release the software source code they were legally liable to release.
I don’t want to come across as being anti-Flex; the effort they put into defining, publishing, and implementing the software APIs available for the FlexRadio is outstanding. It’s just that they haven’t quite come out and admitted that they are not now, if they ever were, an open-source software company.
It’s a another rant, but my argument is that all of the fuss over SDR in amateur radio is greatly overblown if end-users are not able to actually read, understand, and modify the software that runs their SDRs. The net effect is that we remain appliance operators, only appliance operators of software-defined appliances rather than hardware-defined appliances.
Larry Gadallah, NM7A says
I am relieved to find that notions regarding the “open-ness” of Flex are not unique. Jim Lux, W6RMK made these comments, which I feel are relevant:
– https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/closed-ham-radio-peripheral-reveals-its-windows-secrets/#comment-6221093
– https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/closed-ham-radio-peripheral-reveals-its-windows-secrets/#comment-6220534
– https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/closed-ham-radio-peripheral-reveals-its-windows-secrets/#comment-6221092