Not a happy camper

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WB8LBZ
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 3:59 am
Location: El Paso, TX

Not a happy camper

Postby WB8LBZ » Thu May 25, 2017 3:12 am

I have a mostly new Anan 8000DLE and I have been reading most of the day from owners that have put one of these in service. I got a second Gig network setup and confirmed that it is at Gig with a switch. The things I was looking forward to I can't do. Before I do anything I have to rewire the main power. I'm glad I found that on line. I don't mind a little smoke when I'm cooking outside but not in the ham shack.
Pure Signal is only a dream. I have to update to a newer version of the firmware. Lets not for get the LCD display, it needs to be updated too.
Maybe I can rewire the power on Saturday and see it it light up with no smoke. If I had to rate this new radio it would be a 2 out of 5.

73,
Larry, WB8LBZ
Anan 7000 sn:117 and Hermes board sn:3115
El Paso, TX
good in QRZ
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Simon
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun Apr 09, 2017 5:19 pm
Location: Mawnan Smith
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Re: Not a happy camper

Postby Simon » Thu May 25, 2017 5:36 am

WB8LBZ wrote:I have a mostly new Anan 8000DLE and I have been reading most of the day from owners that have put one of these in service. I got a second Gig network setup and confirmed that it is at Gig with a switch. The things I was looking forward to I can't do. Before I do anything I have to rewire the main power. I'm glad I found that on line. I don't mind a little smoke when I'm cooking outside but not in the ham shack.
Pure Signal is only a dream. I have to update to a newer version of the firmware. Lets not for get the LCD display, it needs to be updated too.
Maybe I can rewire the power on Saturday and see it it light up with no smoke. If I had to rate this new radio it would be a 2 out of 5.

73,


Larry,

FWIW I use a Manson 120 amp PSU, aka 'The Brick'. I use the new protocol with my own software (not PowerSDR) and am happy at the moment - my issues are with the software, unfortunately the programmer also likes to walk his dog, do gardening and FM Band II (88-108MHz) dx-ing.

Once this fool gets his coding act together I'm sure I have the ultimate in SDR transceiver.

I have a small setup for 6m - worked KP4EIT yesterfay on Tropo / E's, so happy bunny.
sdr-radio.com
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w-u-2-o
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Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2017 1:47 pm

Re: Not a happy camper

Postby w-u-2-o » Thu May 25, 2017 1:42 pm

Larry,

What can't you do that you were looking forward to?

Why the angst about upgrading the firmware? The entire point of these radios is to allow for rapid improvements in capabilities, which often involves upgrading firmware. If you want something akin to a rock in terms of its ability to change, you could always buy an IC-7300 ;) (not that it couldn't be updated, just that one would not expect Icom to do so very often).

It is a little annoying that there was a flurry of firmware updates to fix bugs immediately after release. Unfortunately the economics of the situation are such that the hardware alpha/beta test population is necessarily very small compared to say what Icom might be able to do.

Things seem pretty stable now, although one thing that still needs a good solution is the ability to remote reset the Arduino ("LCD") on a fault condition. That would otherwise be fatal in a remote operations scenario. One could remote power cycle the entire radio to do so, but that's a brute force solution.

73!

Scott
WB8LBZ
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 3:59 am
Location: El Paso, TX

Re: Not a happy camper

Postby WB8LBZ » Thu May 25, 2017 2:16 pm

Hi Scott,
Pure Signal is where I want to be.I have the Xtronic parts on the way. I am not real confident I can update the firmware as I have not been in the Annan community while the development was moving along. I'm coming at this as a total Noob. I think I can update the display by myself. I haven't read enough about the firmware update process but I know I will need to do so. I am reading all I can about Thetis I can find. I got spoiled when I owned a Flex 3000. I'm poking around all the links I can find trying to get up to speed.

73,
Larry, WB8LBZ
Anan 7000 sn:117 and Hermes board sn:3115
El Paso, TX
good in QRZ
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w-u-2-o
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Re: Not a happy camper

Postby w-u-2-o » Thu May 25, 2017 3:53 pm

Larry,

I think that you will be a very happy camper in short order. This stuff only seems hard until you do it once or twice. I had a 3000 and it was booooring ;) i.e. no fun firmware updates with cool new capabilities.

I would strongly recommend you start with PowerSDR and the current protocol firmware (aka Protocol 1) before messing with Thetis and the new protocol (Protocol 2).

For help with firmware updates to your 8000, certainly post in this sub-forum here. The Apache/openHPSDR community is a great one and there are lots of people ready to help you if you need it. Doing the regular firmware update is easy, just see the "sticky" posts in this forum. Doing the LCD (really Arduino) update is a little more complex, so you should definitely read this thread.

When you finally get your Xtronic coupler, if you run into any problems with PureSignal then be sure to post in the PureSignal subforum. The forward coupled output of the Xtronic coupler should be attached to the PS Input on the back of your 8000. You may or may not need a few dB of attenuation between the coupler and the PS Input. Once you get things working, post in the PureSignal subforum and we can get you fine tuned.

73!

Scott
WB8LBZ
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 3:59 am
Location: El Paso, TX

Re: Not a happy camper

Postby WB8LBZ » Thu May 25, 2017 4:15 pm

Thanks for the pointers Scott.

73,
Larry, WB8LBZ
Anan 7000 sn:117 and Hermes board sn:3115
El Paso, TX
good in QRZ
WB8LBZ
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 3:59 am
Location: El Paso, TX

Re: Not a happy camper

Postby WB8LBZ » Sat May 27, 2017 1:21 am

I have fixed the power connector.
IMG_0274.JPG
IMG_0274.JPG (1.16 MiB) Viewed 11094 times

IMG_0276.JPG
IMG_0276.JPG (1.23 MiB) Viewed 11094 times

The I tested it with a known good cable.
IMG_0277.JPG
IMG_0277.JPG (1.19 MiB) Viewed 11094 times


73,
Larry, WB8LBZ
Anan 7000 sn:117 and Hermes board sn:3115
El Paso, TX
good in QRZ

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