Preparing the Flex for Digital Mode Ops.

I have owned the Flex 3000 transceiver for almost two years now and I have operated it using ssb on all bands except 160 meters (no 160 meter antenna). It has performed at or above expectations and I am delighted I made the purchase. Operating the Flex has brought some real joy back into ham radio for me and I recommend one to all who are interested in SDR equipment. It is now past time, however, for me to get serious about setting the Flex up for digital modes operations the way I originally intended to do when I purchased it. I will need to add the Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) application and configure it for use with the HF digital modes using the existing second soundcard in my ham shack desktop computer.

The beauty of using a VAC configuration is once set up properly there are no additional audio cables to be run from the Flex to the computer soundcard as there are with a normal transceiver to soundcard interface setup. The same firewire cable that handles the communications between the computer and the Flex (controlling the operation of the Flex) also carries the audio for the digital modes. The VAC is unfortunately not provided by the Flex folks but is a third party application so I need to order that first. Going digital modes with the Flex is my project for the first week of 2012.

Currently for HF digital modes work I use my faithful old Kenwood TS-570D with a Rigblaster Plus interface to a second sound card, a SoundBlaster 24, in my ham shack desktop computer. It has worked very well and will remain my backup digital station. The 570D also serves as my cw station and that task will likewise be switched to the Flex. The HF the digital modes I mainly work are PSK31 and RTTY, but occasionally I work some Olivia and MT63. I am also set up to work soundcard Pactor using the AGW Packet Engine for my Paclink application for our ARES Emcomm work.  My VHF digital work is only Paclink for the ARES Emcomm operations. That is setup on my old Kenwood TM-G707 dual band FM transceiver using a SignaLink USB interface to my ham shack laptop computer. That will not change.

In the meantime I will finally install my new Kenwood TM-D710A in my truck between Christmas and the New Year. It has been sitting in its unopened box on my shelves in the shack for over a year. I will probably have to replace the small internal battery before I can store anything in its memory.

I will post a report on my progress right after the first of the year. In the meantime I hope everyone has a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, froeliches Yule or just plain old joyous holiday season however you celebrate it.

73, Jim

W5LOG

(Looney Old Grouch)

Glossary for non-hams

HF                 high frequency

VHF              very high frequency

ssb                 single sideband

cw                 Morse code

PSK31          a narrow bandwidth keyboard to keyboard digital communication mode

RTTY            radio teletype

ARES           Amateur Radio Emergency Service

Emcomms     Emergency communications