[hpsdr] Metis step attenuator hang-up

[John Ackermann]

I operated my TAPR-built Hermes, ANAN-10 amp, and TenTec 714 100W amp 
for Field Day.  The software was mRX FFT 3.0.16 running on a Lenovo X200 
laptop with Core2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz CPU and 4GB RAM.  The OS is Windows 
XP with current updates.  I'm running at 192ksamples with default buffer 
sizes.

Things generally worked just fine -- in fact, excellently, but I noticed 
one anomaly and wanted to see if this was a known issue, or if there was 
a fix.

Several times the step attenuator got stuck at 31dB in receive mode.  I 
noticed this under at least two circumstances: (a) a failed software 
start, where I hadn't let the IP stack do its thing before starting the 
radio, and then having to re-start PowerSDR, and (b) sometimes when 
returning from TX to RX in CW mode.  When it happened on the TX/RX 
transition, I usually heard some noise bursts on the monitored audio 
during the TX period.

The CPU load shown by PowerSDR seems to stay in the 30% range, and there 
are no other apps running.  Is what I'm seeing likely to be a bug, or a 
resource deficiency?  And are there any suggested fixes?

Thanks!

John