The Flex-6700 is my primary HF rig. This radio is probably the most advanced software-defined radio available to radio amateurs. The 6700 covers 160 meters to 6 meters with all of the usual analog modes and is also an excellent platform for the digital modes. The output power is nominally 100 watts. In addition to the HF bands, the 6700 includes 2 meters, but the power output level is only approximately 10 dBm (10 mW). In my case, I feed this output (taken from the transverter output on the radio) to a low drive power amplifier (2MLDPA) which gives me approximately 50 watts out on that band. I also interface the 6700 with a 1.25 meter (222 MHz) transverter and the transverter operating frequency is displayed directly by the 6700. The 6700 is also capable of interfacing with additional transverters well into the microwave bands, again with direct frequency display. I utilize a 10 MHz rear panel input to lock the internal master oscillator of the 6700 to an external GPSDO for stability and frequency accuracy.The transceiver is powered by my 13.8 volt, 35 amp Astron power supply.

The radio is driven by a software product known as SmartSDR which is available for Windows, MacOS X, and iOS. The 6700 can be accessed via a direct ethernet connection, via a local LAN, or via the internet. For digital mode operation, SmartSDR utilizes a technique known as DAX (digital audio exchange) to avoid the problems associated with internal or external sound cards. The Flex-6700 with Smart SDR is capable of displaying up to 8 slices (essentially receivers) simultaneously. These slices can be individually switched to either one of two antenna inputs. The radio, of course, can only transmit on one slice at a time. I normally only utilize one or two slices at a time in my operations. A screen capture of SmartSDR with one slice and with 8 slices is given below:

Flex 6700 Running SmartSDR (1 Slice)


Flex 6700 Running SmartSDR (8 Slices)