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Yaesu FTDX10 Screen Freezes with DxLab Running

David Sack K1DMS
 

I have a new FTDX10 that after some fiddling with parameters, has been running on DxLab. However, since installing DxLab, the Yaesu screen periodically freezes and requires a hard reboot to bring it back to life.
The technician at Yaesu America who I spoke with about it had me reproduce the problem several times. The firmware is up to date. He was about to have me send it back when he decided to have me disconnect the computer. The problem vanished. He said it might be my computer itself or the DxLab software doing it.
Is my configuration causing the problem? 
The virtual ports are COM4 and COM5 downloaded from Yaesu's site. They are set to "never turn off to save power". I set their Baud to 38,400, and parity N,8,2 with control on flow.
All seems to work fine until unpredictably, it freezes. 
Anyone with any experience with this problem?
Dave AA6YQ
 

+ AA6YQ comments below
I have a new FTDX10 that after some fiddling with parameters, has been running on DxLab. However, since installing DxLab, the Yaesu screen periodically freezes and requires a hard reboot to bring it back to life.
The technician at Yaesu America who I spoke with about it had me reproduce the problem several times. The firmware is up to date. He was about to have me send it back when he decided to have me disconnect the computer. The problem vanished. He said it might be my computer itself or the DxLab software doing it.
Is my configuration causing the problem? 
The virtual ports are COM4 and COM5 downloaded from Yaesu's site. They are set to "never turn off to save power". I set their Baud to 38,400, and parity N,8,2 with control on flow.
All seems to work fine until unpredictably, it freezes. 
Anyone with any experience with this problem?

+ If the transceiver is locking up as a result of interacting with Commander, then the transceiver is by definition defective - no matter what Commander is sending it.

+ There are several DXLab users who use Commander to control their  FTDX10s. None have reported the misbehavior you describe.

     73,

          Dave, AA6YQ

 

 
Bedford Teague
 

Yes, this happened to me. I thought I had a bad radio. DX replaced it 8 days after purchase. I have yet to experience it again. I am running a lot of software. The whole dx suite. HDR*. N3jhp, grid, mien, blue iris, with ai.

It occured running long FT8 sessions 6+hrs 
David Sack K1DMS
 

Hi Bedford,
Thanks for responding to my query. Tim at Yaesu was all to happy to blame the problem on either my computer or DxLab. How did you get them to replace yours?
73,
Dave K1DMS
Dave AA6YQ
 

+ AA6YQ comments below
Thanks for responding to my query. Tim at Yaesu was all to happy to blame the problem on either my computer or DxLab. 

+ Did he provide a technical justification for this claim? Ask him to point you at a description in any Yaesu manual indicating the the transmission of certain information to the FTDX10's CAT port can cause the radio to freeze.

     73,

          Dave, AA6YQ

 
Bedford Teague
 

I mentioned the reseller was my point of contact. I am surprised he got Yaesu on the phone, I bet he could not call and get them to pickup again (Caller ID tied to some software that flags calls). Yaesu is very skilled at misleading and i knew i would be screwed if it had been a few days later DX was not happy either. They said it could not be the radio Yaesu is just too good to have this type problem. Even they lied like crazy I had it documented. They told me they ran it for 60 hours, this was about 3 days in their possession. I told them in my letter that went along with the radio that I had been FT8ing for 6 hours straight when it happened and it happened again the next day around the same time mark, the third day I got two hours and no problem. DX said they did phone and ritty and ft8 for 60 hours, just think about that, how arrogant. I did tell them I would do a chargeback if they stuck to that ridiculous story, that dept head called me, I could tell he had gotten an as_ chewing.  In my heart they did not have an employee work that radio for 60 hours and I told them so using nice unheated words. Also, you may think Yaesu asking you to send the radio in is helpful, but I would be slow about that. i sent my FT818 in and they put it on a shelf and did little to nothing and then when i got it back they were certain nothing was wrong and it was real hard to deal with them after that. It's a new world.

But on the radio, I think its a combination of things, I am not equipped to troubleshoot it. Currently on my ft8 waterfall i am getting blank lines, no RF for a few seconds. I would wager it is a electrical issue. And i have not had time to work it all day again, with it warming up I got a lot to do when it gets hot I will come back inside.

We need to hold Y's feet to the fire on this issue if it grows. I record every phone call and always tell the truth even if it hurts. I am in a one party state and I am not getting screwed without a fight.  Tim could be right but its because his radio is not handling the commands the software sends properly or the software is getting bad data from the radio and the computer processor cant figure out what to say and the radio locks up. Will Yaesu say their radio just can't handle too much FT8? Nope! I have not heard of people having this issue with other Yaesus. I suspect the 101 would do the same thing. That is some nice FT8 software.



On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 4:07 PM David Sack K1DMS <davidmsack@...> wrote:
Hi Bedford,
Thanks for responding to my query. Tim at Yaesu was all to happy to blame the problem on either my computer or DxLab. How did you get them to replace yours?
73,
Dave K1DMS

Bedford Teague
 

I forgot to say that I have high confidence in DXsoftware and I was talking about DX engineering. i did not catch that while i was writing in this forum. 


On Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 11:08 PM Bedford Teague via groups.io <KQ4ABU=gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:
I mentioned the reseller was my point of contact. I am surprised he got Yaesu on the phone, I bet he could not call and get them to pickup again (Caller ID tied to some software that flags calls). Yaesu is very skilled at misleading and i knew i would be screwed if it had been a few days later DX was not happy either. They said it could not be the radio Yaesu is just too good to have this type problem. Even they lied like crazy I had it documented. They told me they ran it for 60 hours, this was about 3 days in their possession. I told them in my letter that went along with the radio that I had been FT8ing for 6 hours straight when it happened and it happened again the next day around the same time mark, the third day I got two hours and no problem. DX said they did phone and ritty and ft8 for 60 hours, just think about that, how arrogant. I did tell them I would do a chargeback if they stuck to that ridiculous story, that dept head called me, I could tell he had gotten an as_ chewing.  In my heart they did not have an employee work that radio for 60 hours and I told them so using nice unheated words. Also, you may think Yaesu asking you to send the radio in is helpful, but I would be slow about that. i sent my FT818 in and they put it on a shelf and did little to nothing and then when i got it back they were certain nothing was wrong and it was real hard to deal with them after that. It's a new world.

But on the radio, I think its a combination of things, I am not equipped to troubleshoot it. Currently on my ft8 waterfall i am getting blank lines, no RF for a few seconds. I would wager it is a electrical issue. And i have not had time to work it all day again, with it warming up I got a lot to do when it gets hot I will come back inside.

We need to hold Y's feet to the fire on this issue if it grows. I record every phone call and always tell the truth even if it hurts. I am in a one party state and I am not getting screwed without a fight.  Tim could be right but its because his radio is not handling the commands the software sends properly or the software is getting bad data from the radio and the computer processor cant figure out what to say and the radio locks up. Will Yaesu say their radio just can't handle too much FT8? Nope! I have not heard of people having this issue with other Yaesus. I suspect the 101 would do the same thing. That is some nice FT8 software.



On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 4:07 PM David Sack K1DMS <davidmsack@...> wrote:
Hi Bedford,
Thanks for responding to my query. Tim at Yaesu was all to happy to blame the problem on either my computer or DxLab. How did you get them to replace yours?
73,
Dave K1DMS

Dave AA6YQ
 

+ AA6YQ comments below
I mentioned the reseller was my point of contact. I am surprised he got Yaesu on the phone, I bet he could not call and get them to pickup again (Caller ID tied to some software that flags calls). Yaesu is very skilled at misleading and i knew i would be screwed if it had been a few days later DX was not happy either. They said it could not be the radio Yaesu is just too good to have this type problem. Even they lied like crazy I had it documented. They told me they ran it for 60 hours, this was about 3 days in their possession. I told them in my letter that went along with the radio that I had been FT8ing for 6 hours straight when it happened and it happened again the next day around the same time mark, the third day I got two hours and no problem. DX said they did phone and ritty and ft8 for 60 hours, just think about that, how arrogant. I did tell them I would do a chargeback if they stuck to that ridiculous story, that dept head called me, I could tell he had gotten an as_ chewing.  In my heart they did not have an employee work that radio for 60 hours and I told them so using nice unheated words. Also, you may think Yaesu asking you to send the radio in is helpful, but I would be slow about that. i sent my FT818 in and they put it on a shelf and did little to nothing and then when i got it back they were certain nothing was wrong and it was real hard to deal with them after that. It's a new world.
 
But on the radio, I think its a combination of things, I am not equipped to troubleshoot it. Currently on my ft8 waterfall i am getting blank lines, no RF for a few seconds. I would wager it is a electrical issue. And i have not had time to work it all day again, with it warming up I got a lot to do when it gets hot I will come back inside.
 
We need to hold Y's feet to the fire on this issue if it grows. I record every phone call and always tell the truth even if it hurts. I am in a one party state and I am not getting screwed without a fight.  Tim could be right but its because his radio is not handling the commands the software sends properly or the software is getting bad data from the radio and the computer processor cant figure out what to say and the radio locks up. Will Yaesu say their radio just can't handle too much FT8? Nope! I have not heard of people having this issue with other Yaesus. I suspect the 101 would do the same thing. That is some nice FT8 software.

+ The bottom line is that if a properly powered transceiver freezes and there's no RFI, that transceiver is defective. If Commander were to send it an improper command, it should simply reject or ignore that Command - not freeze.

+ If you set the RF output power to its minimum and select a clear frequency, does the transceiver freeze?

        73,

               Dave, AA6YQ

 

 
Bedford Teague
 

 I was guessing on the cause, I can tell you what happened with me everything else is a guess.. I run @ 20w. On the freezing it occurred under constant use, one after another. The blank lines are in wjstx and might occur right after I submit from time to time after I have operated a while. I will need to confirm the timing


On Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 12:42 AM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote:
+ AA6YQ comments below
I mentioned the reseller was my point of contact. I am surprised he got Yaesu on the phone, I bet he could not call and get them to pickup again (Caller ID tied to some software that flags calls). Yaesu is very skilled at misleading and i knew i would be screwed if it had been a few days later DX was not happy either. They said it could not be the radio Yaesu is just too good to have this type problem. Even they lied like crazy I had it documented. They told me they ran it for 60 hours, this was about 3 days in their possession. I told them in my letter that went along with the radio that I had been FT8ing for 6 hours straight when it happened and it happened again the next day around the same time mark, the third day I got two hours and no problem. DX said they did phone and ritty and ft8 for 60 hours, just think about that, how arrogant. I did tell them I would do a chargeback if they stuck to that ridiculous story, that dept head called me, I could tell he had gotten an as_ chewing.  In my heart they did not have an employee work that radio for 60 hours and I told them so using nice unheated words. Also, you may think Yaesu asking you to send the radio in is helpful, but I would be slow about that. i sent my FT818 in and they put it on a shelf and did little to nothing and then when i got it back they were certain nothing was wrong and it was real hard to deal with them after that. It's a new world.
 
But on the radio, I think its a combination of things, I am not equipped to troubleshoot it. Currently on my ft8 waterfall i am getting blank lines, no RF for a few seconds. I would wager it is a electrical issue. And i have not had time to work it all day again, with it warming up I got a lot to do when it gets hot I will come back inside.
 
We need to hold Y's feet to the fire on this issue if it grows. I record every phone call and always tell the truth even if it hurts. I am in a one party state and I am not getting screwed without a fight.  Tim could be right but its because his radio is not handling the commands the software sends properly or the software is getting bad data from the radio and the computer processor cant figure out what to say and the radio locks up. Will Yaesu say their radio just can't handle too much FT8? Nope! I have not heard of people having this issue with other Yaesus. I suspect the 101 would do the same thing. That is some nice FT8 software.

+ The bottom line is that if a properly powered transceiver freezes and there's no RFI, that transceiver is defective. If Commander were to send it an improper command, it should simply reject or ignore that Command - not freeze.

+ If you set the RF output power to its minimum and select a clear frequency, does the transceiver freeze?

        73,

               Dave, AA6YQ

 

 
Dave AA6YQ
 

+ AA6YQ comments below

I was guessing on the cause, I can tell you what happened with me everything else is a guess.. I run @ 20w. On the freezing it occurred under constant use, one after another. The blank lines are in wjstx and might occur right after I submit from time to time after I have operated a while. I will need to confirm the timing

+ Try this experiment:

1. find a clear frequency

2. reduce the transceiver's RF power output to its minimum

3. begin calling CQ in FT8

+ Does the transceiver freeze?

+ If not, you likely have an RFI problem, not a defective radio.

73,

Dave, AA6YQ
Bedford Teague
 

Thanks for that help. My radio was already replaced. I mention the only problem currently is the black lines, again I have not used it again for over 6 hours. Tonight I can confirm the black lines happens when I am logging with WSJTX and with the Capture window open. I will continue to pay attention to it

I frequently find RFI problems that I fix immediately it doesn't take long before you know you have a problem and you fix it most recently I replaced two jumper cables so that I could reconfigure something, immediately had trouble in the shack with several radios, both jumper cables were bad and i immediately removed them and the problems instantly went away. That's happened half a dozen times with something similar. And I frequently check with a AM radio for anything not in that room, in case a battery charger for example starts having quiet problems. Gently I would say I don't have a RFI problems that has caused me problems for longer than an hour.

I pinpointed the time or very close to the time black lines occur. I can drop the power lower than twenty, I don't know off hand how low I can go. Hopefully 5 or lower. I will try it tomorrow the black lines are a product of the screen freezing, but the radio was replaced because it required me to turn it off to gain control, currently this comes back on its own

On Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 3:36 AM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote:
+ AA6YQ comments below

 I was guessing on the cause, I can tell you what happened with me everything else is a guess.. I run @ 20w. On the freezing it occurred under constant use, one after another. The blank lines are in wjstx and might occur right after I submit from time to time after I have operated a while. I will need to confirm the timing

+ Try this experiment:

1. find a clear frequency

2. reduce the transceiver's RF power output to its minimum

3. begin calling CQ in FT8

+ Does the transceiver freeze?

+ If not, you likely have an RFI problem, not a defective radio.

        73,

               Dave, AA6YQ
Bedford Teague
 

Dave, I discovered the black lines cause you made a suggestion on, not the freeze/reboot problem. I had added a camera to my BlurIris software and on that day added the AI to it. the writes occur on a different harddrive but that third camera and or the AI pushed the processor over the edge I had 25% free until I installed the AI and when I was entering data in Capture and WSJT-X and hitting enter about 1 second apart with the processor peaking around 100% the computer froze and black lines occurred. I am buying another computer and move the cameras.

I write this in case it helps someone troubleshoot a problem.

On Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 3:36 AM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote:
+ AA6YQ comments below

 I was guessing on the cause, I can tell you what happened with me everything else is a guess.. I run @ 20w. On the freezing it occurred under constant use, one after another. The blank lines are in wjstx and might occur right after I submit from time to time after I have operated a while. I will need to confirm the timing

+ Try this experiment:

1. find a clear frequency

2. reduce the transceiver's RF power output to its minimum

3. begin calling CQ in FT8

+ Does the transceiver freeze?

+ If not, you likely have an RFI problem, not a defective radio.

        73,

               Dave, AA6YQ

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