[Flexradio] 1.18.3 Noise ?

[Dan Scott]

I've been fighting what I thought was an RFI problem.  To the point of 
connecting the radio to a Battery and swapping out the computer's UPS 
with different one as well as testing with a power inverter. Obviously I 
turned off all power in the house for the test.  What looks like RFI 
remained.

Anyway what I eventually did was ... think.  That is, I asked myself the 
question "What was the last thing that changed?".   Hmmm .. Oh, I 
installed 1.18.3. 

Anyway for a 1.18.2 vs. 1.18.3 comparison with a dummy load for antenna 
and a fresh database when swapping between version:
   Noise Floor
   -- V1.18.2 = S1
   -- V1.18.3 = S3
   Waterfall
   -- V1.18.2 = blank with a couple off freq spurs
   -- V1.18.3 = green with a solid noise line every kc.. i.e.  14.200, 
14.201, 14.202...etc.  not exactly but general idea.

When connected to an antenna, the Noise Floor of v1.18.3 is always 2db 
to 3db higher than that of v1.18.2.  Also another radio was used to 
verify if the higher noise floor was just a metering difference or a if 
1.18.3 was imposing additional noise.  The result is the FT-100 could 
receive SSB, CW, and digital which the SDR1000 with 18.2.3 covered up 
with noise.  With 1.18.2 the SDR-1000 easily out received the FT-100.

I did not see anything else on this problem in the forum, meaning I'm 
rather poor at finding things (true!) or the problem is isolated to my 
setup.  I have not tried swapping PCs yet, hoping for a resolution 
before having to do that painful test.

The rig is a SDR1000 with FA66.  Parallel cable is used.  Computer 
(homebuilt quad-core) runs 7% - 13% while using PowerSDR along with 
DDUtil, DX Commander (without WW), and N1MM (if not a couple other 
odds-n-ends).  This exact hardware setup has been running flawlessly for 
at least 1 year.

Thanks
Dan