Broke down and bought one ...
 

After varying success with homebrew SDRs' (software defined radios)
built on PCI breadboards stuck into old PCs', I made the jump into a
commercial one--bit "pricey" though--a little under five grand for the
Flex-5000C ... I am as anxious as a kid waiting his order from the back
of a comic book! (they still do that, don't they?) :-)

Regards,
JS

Broke down and bought one ...
 

John Smith wrote:
After varying success with homebrew SDRs' (software defined radios)
built on PCI breadboards stuck into old PCs', I made the jump into a
commercial one--bit "pricey" though--a little under five grand for the
Flex-5000C ... I am as anxious as a kid waiting his order from the back
of a comic book! (they still do that, don't they?) :-)

Regards,
JS

Forgot to include the URL, in case anyone else is interested:

http://www.flex-radio.com/Products.a...c=f5k_features

Regards,
JS

Broke down and bought one ...
 

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

After varying success with homebrew SDRs' (software defined radios)
built on PCI breadboards stuck into old PCs', I made the jump into a
commercial one--bit "pricey" though--a little under five grand for the
Flex-5000C ... I am as anxious as a kid waiting his order from the back
of a comic book! (they still do that, don't they?) :-)

Regards,
JS

Mmmmm...given how long I own my radios, and given how quickly pc
hardware improves, I'd probably go for the model that doesn't include
the integrated PC.

Jerry

Broke down and bought one ...
 

Jerseyj wrote:

...
Mmmmm...given how long I own my radios, and given how quickly pc
hardware improves, I'd probably go for the model that doesn't include
the integrated PC.

Jerry

The firmware is upgradeable, they promise to allow you access to any new
versions of the SDR software.

The CPU is an intel dual core; Just how much processing power do you
need to run a radio? But then, you can cruise the web on this "radio!",
run other apps (think EZNEC here), etc.

Also, if you need to control it remotely, you can still do so from
another computer via firewire (say put the transceiver in your trunk and
run it from a laptop in your passenger compartment), LAN, or
WAN--wireless-ly. Indeed, you can control this rig from anywhere in the
world using VOIP!

Personally, I thought it time to buy. Will certainly beat anything I
can homebrew here ... your mileage may vary.

Regards,
JS

Broke down and bought one ...
 

Steve H wrote:

...
As a short term investment in a radio it may not be bad value but in
this fast changing market that has not yet had any of the big 4 players
make a move the resale value in 5 years may be rather lower than you
would expect for a conventional radio - think of the value of a 2002
computer with a then state of the art sound card.


Steve H (Luddite)

Steve:

You know I can hardly wait to lay hands on the darn thing; and, you know
it will live with me for a day and, THEN, I will have the case off it.

You did see the sentence which acknowledges it has an ITX board in it (a
miniature motherboard!) In effect, I am just buying a computer which
knows how to be a radio ...

I tell you, I think it is enough. I do believe I will be happy with it.
It is NOT like buying gold, I know it has a life expectancy and one
day that will be $0.01 USD.

Still, I will be happy for a bit ... as I said, you mileage may vary. I
walked into this deal with my eyes wide open ...

Warm regards,
JS