What is the probability of market availability with regards to two items announced by Apache Labs?

[VE3INH]

First; let me preface my inquiry with the clear statement that I am in no way criticizing Apache Labs or attempting to make any malicious comments that could spur a flame war. My singular purpose in asking the following two questions is to obtain credible information that could influence a future purchase on my part.

What I would like to know is as follows:

1) Although the Andromeda series of SDR's are no longer being manufactured, Apache Labs sales literature regarding the Andromeda radios specified that there would be an auto-tracking internal antenna tuner developed and made available in the future. Two sub questions arise from that previous announcement. Firstly; why did that optional accessory never make it to market? Secondly; will such an accessory be made available for the G2 series of radios?

2) Sales literature for the G2 series indicates remote operation capabilities will be made available in the future. How far along in development is that feature and when could it potentially be available to G2 users?

Respectfully: John M. (VE3INH)

[Trucker]

John, to your second question, it depends on developers ( volunteers not paid) taking an interest in creating a thin client application to make remote operation possible. It depends on the firmware in the radio and probably an application running on the Pi CM4 module to process data similar to what the p2app program does ( with a lot more processing) to allow Thetis to communicate over the network. It wouldn't be something I would base a purchase of the G2 Saturn on alone. It may happen and it may not.
If you are considering a G2 I would suggest looking only at what it does now. Not what it is capable of in the future. It certainly has the potential. But, given the fact that Apache Labs doesn't actually have paid developers to provide future enhancements, I "personally " would not buy one hoping for something like remote operation. What the G2 does now is good. And will be better once some of the initial problems have been resolved.
James
WD5GWY

[laurencebarker]

I can tell you that Kjell Karlsen and I developed at Automatic ATU "Aries" that is fully integrated into Thetis. However we were a bit cautious about the voltage and current requirements, which has made it in retrospect a bit over-engineered. The current version works very well with 1KW PAs (which he subsequently also made). There is no reason why the RF part can't be shrunk down to a more appropriately sized set of toroids and capacitors for a 100W PA - but the current one was too large to fit into the top of G2 "as is". I imagine it is one entry in a very long to-do list; but the software side exists today.

Remote operation: well there is already a partly-developed remote capability written into piHPSDR. If a developer wanted to work on it, that could be completed. There is also an open-source thin client software called RemoteSDR developed by Andre Buhart F1ATB - that could probably be ported. Does anyone want to help?

[Trucker]

Laurance, thanks for the information on remote operation. I would offer to help but, currently I don't own a G2. And what little coding skills I have are using C# for Windows applications. ( mostly for my Flex 6600M ) I am a want to be programmer. Mostly to keep my 72 year old brain cells going!
Thanks for all you do.
James
WD5GWY

I do have an 8000DLE and have looked over the source code for Thetis. I can tell just looking at it, that me trying to write good, working code for my 8000DLE will be a challenge!

[VE3INH]

Thank you James and Laurence for your detailed and informative feedback. I really appreciate it.

Regards: John M. (VE3INH)