WlFlexDriver version 12.25 introduced integration of this WriteLog FlexRadio 6000 series driver with FlexRadio's SmartLink. Prior versions of this driver cannot connect to or control FlexRadios that are accessed remotely via SmartLink.
SmartLink is a technology that enables SmartSDR to run on a PC that you have wherever you are, yet control a FlexRadio 6000 that is somewhere else on the internet. WriteLog with SmartLink requires, as it always has, that you control the Flex with SmartSDR or Maestro. But this WriteLog Flex driver enables WriteLog be on that PC that is with you and still control the radio that is elsewhere on the internet. All the features that WriteLog with its FlexRadio driver has on a locally connected FlexRadio, it maintains over SmartLink. DAX features add their own bandwidth demands, and certain DAX features can be blocked by firewalls (see DAX setup).
WriteLog doesn't enable SmartLink until you first Apply the special "SmartLink..." setting in the Setup/Ports dialog. Start by setting the Rig Type to Flex-6000 series, and then notice what is under the COM column, like this. (The "Mayfield" option is the name of a Flex that is on my local network.)
SmartLink... selected,
click the Apply button, and you will be prompted to login to your SmartLink account. If the Apply
button is gray, then click on the SmartLink.. indicator in the left column to enable it.
The way WriteLog
does the authorization is to direct your web browser to
SmartLink's login page. On my PC running FireFox, it looks like this:
Your browser might or might not ask if you really want to open the WlSmartLinkCallback application. If you get such a prompt, you must allow it. Here is how that looks on FireFox. Checking the "Remember my..." box prevents this prompt coming up again the next time you need WriteLog to login to SmartLink.
Microsoft Edge makes it look ugly:
Once you supply your login credentials, the browswer tab remains open on that page (and might look like its forever trying to load it) but WriteLog does not need that page open in your browser any longer.
Back in WriteLog's Setup/Ports, get WriteLog to refresh its rig list by clicking
the "Rig Type" on
Flex-6000 series until the contents of the COM column
changes (This is awkward. The most recent version of
WriteLog does not need you to change the Rig Type, but instead
will refresh the list if you repeatedly click the down triangle in the COM
column.)
Finally click the OK button and WriteLog now controls your Flex. And use Setup/Save-Configuration so you don't have to do this every time you start WriteLog.
After you do Setup/Save-Configuration using the SmartLink... setting, the next time you start WriteLog, it first looks
for the radio on the local network. If it cannot find the rig on the local network, it calls up your web browser to the
SmartLink login page.
This happens after the WriteLog startup screen, but before the main WriteLog screen appears.
If you have WriteLog on a portable PC that moves between a network where the Flex is local and where it is accessed via SmartLink, WriteLog notices if the rig is local. When Writelog finds the Flex local, it disables use of SmartLink for that radio in its ini file (because the login process puts up intrusive dialog boxes that are unnecessary for a local radio.) Moving the portable PC off the local network will require going back through Setup/Ports to and using the SmartLink... login.
The WriteLog Flex driver has a built-in 20 second timer for SmartLink login and presents a small box during the login. If you don't get through the login process in 20 seconds, WriteLog comes up anyway, but your FlexRadio rig won't be accessible until you go back through Setup/Ports. You may change the 20 seconds in WriteLog.ini:
[RIGS]
FlexSmartLinkDeadlineSeconds=20WriteLog's DAX replacements work with SmartLink, but with the limitation that firewalls can and will prevent necessary DAX traffic from traveling in the direction from the radio to WriteLog. That would include DAX IQ (for Band Map spectrum) and DAX RX, which is used, for example, for routing received audio to an audio RTTY decoder like MMTTY. DAX TX travels in the other direction and is less likely to have a firewall issue because (a) the firewall at the WriteLog PC won't block outgoing traffic and (b) the firewall at the FlexRadio end had to be setup up to forward normal radio control traffic and the Flex-provided procedure for one does both.
WriteLog's Flex driver receives DAX RX and DAX IQ by default on UDP port 6872. This number may be changed by editing writelog.ini:
[RIGS]
FlexDriverUdpPort=6872You only need to know about this UDP port number if you want to operate WriteLog with SmartLink and for DAX RX and DAX IQ to work. If you have no control over the firewall that might be blocking the traffic, then you're out of luck—no DAX support is possible. Don't expect to be able to operate a RTTY contest, or view your Flex's IF spectrum from StarBucks. But if your PC is on a home router that you can configure, then you can set up its port forwarding so that UDP port 6872 is forwarded to your WriteLog PC.
If you happen to be controlling more than one FlexRadio simultantously from WriteLog, it will use up to the next 4 ports, one for each Flex. (Are you going to operate SO2R with radios on two separate continents, or what?) With the default INI setting, they are: 6872, 6873, 6874, and 6875.