Topic: Red station firmware and antenna upgrade

[Stringmike]

Upgrading to the firmware 8.0 produced quite frequent hardware faults, so I finally installed the latest revision (8.1b1).  After one hardware fault, I checked all settings and restarted the system and have seen no problems since.

I also changed from 1-meter frame antennas to 20 cm home-brew ferrites.  Being smaller, I was able to relocate them to an electrically quieter location and this has made a substantial improvement to performance.  I am frankly surprised how well these little ferrite antennas work!

Mike

[W3DRM]

I started off with a homebrew loop antenna on my RED but followed some of the build instructions for the ferrites and built my own ferrite antennas. They are much smaller in physical size than the loops and seem to work better, at least in my particular location.

I've also just recently upgraded the firmware to 8.1b1 and have had no issues at all.