OT: Flex & SDR Design

[Edward R Cole]

Changing the subject line to fit the topic.

Definitely see the advantage of the embedded processor with firmware
upgrades considering what Tony wrote.  A lot of us running ham
specific sw are having these legacy issues with the continual upgrade
of OS.  In fact I have a win95 P75 laptop and p100 desktop for
running old DOS programs and still running my XP32 computer to avoid
compatibility issues.  (but did sell off an old P3 win2000).  I have
an idle P3 upgraded to xp32 which does nothing anymore (antivirus has
expired with no use).  It might get used for dedicated antenna
pointing controller/sw for eme.

We bought a Laptop during the Vista interlude and should have
upgraded it to Seven, but now there is Eight.

Installing an embedded processor allows the SDR mfr to control sw
upgrades in a more rational and economic manner.  I suppose this is
the way new SDR's will go?  If so then there needs to be open
sourcing for sw developers to make additions and improvements outside
of the mfr.  It does amateur radio no service to have the design locked up.

That is the Apple model.  But will severely hamper ham radio SDR development.

73, Ed
--------------------
Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 13:40:59 -0500
From: Tony Estep <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] [OT] Dayton- new hf rigs?

Naw, the client that displays the pan and controls the radio appears to be
not too different from, say, Ham Radio Deluxe. Of course you can run lots
of pans at once and increase the computing needed, but the radio part is
all on the ARM chip inside.

This is an interesting gambit on Flex's part. They absolutely have to get
out from under PSDR, which has been a huge resource drain with no
offsetting revenues. And they were facing obsolescence problems: a new
version of Firewire, USB 3.0, new Windows OS, etc were making them run hard
to stay in the same place with the old designs. OTOH, leaving the old
designs and their installed user base in the dust kinda makes the claim
that the radio can never go out of style sound a bit hollow -- their old
designs are now orphans and that situation will only get worse. An HQ-110
still performs as it did 50 years ago, but a radio that depended on an
Atari 400 or an Apple 1 would just be junk. That could be the eventual fate
of the existing Flex radios, and this new design makes that point in a
trenchant way. It's a very promising design, a huge upgrade, and a huge
amount of addition by subtraction; but it illustrates the difficulties and
dangers of SDR as a business plan.

Tony KT0NY




73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45
======================================
BP40IQ   500 KHz - 10-GHz   www.kl7uw.com
EME: 50-1.1kw?, 144-1.4kw, 432-QRT, 1296-?, 3400-?
DUBUS Magazine USA Rep [hidden email]
"Kits made by KL7UW" http://www.kl7uw.com/kits.htm
======================================
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html