[amsat-bb] Re: Flex 5000

[Alan P. Biddle]

Nick,

Actually, it works pretty well with the latest version.  Set up SATPC32 as
for a TS-2000.  It is neat to see a signal in the transponder, drag it to
the passband, and you are ready to go.  

A few comments.  The Satellite Mode in the SATPC32 setup does nothing,
either way, due to the way the Flex is set up.  Also, it is absolutely
critical set the AGC-T properly.  Set too high, and it appears to have a bad
desense when you transmit.  Set as they recommend, and it works perfectly.
Finally, there are some issues with the squelch in FM causing "motor
boating" in one of the receivers.  That does seem to be new in 2.1.5 and has
been identified as a problem.

There are at least three issues where the VU5K does not quite get the
emulation right.

1.  It does not always assign the PTT to the correct VFO.  You need to set
this manually.

2.  It does not set the TX mode.  Set manually.

3.  If you go from a VU to a UV satellite, or UV to VU, is chokes with some
error messages, and then RX2 shuts down.  From the messages, it seems to be
trying to set both RX1 and RX2 to the same band.  Restart RX2, and all is
well.  As a work around, I created a dummy satellite with both uplink and
downlink on 20 meters.  I select that first, and then the new satellite.  It
is faster, slightly, than clearing the error messages and restarting RX2.

Flex has a bug report on this, and I talked with one of their people at the
Huntsville Hamfest yesterday.

Alan
WA4SCA


-----Original Message-----
From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On
Behalf Of Nick Pugh K5QXJ
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 4:39 AM
To: 'AMSAT BB'
Subject: [amsat-bb] Flex 5000

 

I am struggling to get my Flex 5000 and satpc32 to work. Has anyone on the
list been able to get this combination to get the performance we get with
the vintage radios? My best success has come with version 2.0.2.2 . The
latest  release Friday make thing worse.

 

Thanks

 

nick

Office   337 593 8700

Cell      337 258 2527

 

Helping UL become a world Class Engineering  and Educational School

 

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