Well stated, Joel- and thank you for reminding me of the balance the
manufacturer does indeed have to strike.
I'm looking at my advertisement flyer for the Orion Two and remembering why
I got it.
First of all, I had traded away my Icom for it- which had a wonderful sweep.
I'd seen the Orion display at Dayton and wasn't terribly impressed- the Icom
756PROIII does it very, very well.
But in my copy of the Orion-II flyer I read that there'd be a "HIGH SPEED
SWEEP accessory" [caps-SIC!].
Since I also have an operator within a couple blocks that couldn't use
anything but 500 watts on RTTY (on 20) which so badly overloaded the Icom
(to the point I couldn't use it) I was sold.
And there it is. I wanted THAT. I wanted better than the Icom- and what
wasn't better, to not be WORSE.
The radio works to perfection. I haven't even updated my firmware past the
last official release- it works well enough for me. I can't hear Mr. RTTY (I
do hear his clicks, of course- and he's since moved to 500 watts on PSK
fairly often) except when I tune to him.
But...
My sweep. Where's my sweep? It's not contractual. TenTec never said that
they guaranteed that there would be one, but the SALES literature said that
one was "future planned." I'm guessing that it still is- or at least "future
wished"
So... I'm duped. Again. Not badly. The radio is great. Fun, works fine. Nice
audio- fantastic filtering.
But I'm duped. That diversity reception thing bit me too, but... Enh. I can
live with it (6 Hertz is a hellofa beat!)
My frustration is that the radio doesn't live up to what the sales
literature said I was going to get in my own expected timeframe. That's all.
I'll keep enjoying what is the best radio I've yet found for me. I also
believe Ten-Tec promised better than THAT.
KC4FOX
J
On 11/13/09 5:46 PM, "Joel R. Hallas" <jrhallas@optonline.net> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I have been following this thread a bit, although haven't read every
> posting. To set the stage, while I have been a Ten Tec user over the last
> 20+ years, I now own and use a K3 as my primary HF/VHF transceiver. There
> are a number of reasons I went that way -- probably not worth going over --
> but it wasn't because of lack of good solid support from Ten Tec over the
> years.
>
> I suspect it is very difficult for a manufacturer to continue to provide
> upgrades to released and sold equipment at no cost, yet that seems to be the
> current model that we expect. Chevrolet never offered to upgrade my old Nova
> to the performance level a new model either.
>
> Elecraft is exceptionally good at this, and I really appreciate it. Some if
> it is providing features that they announced at the beginning, such as
> synchronous AM that was released this week. Some is just ideas that users
> have on how it could be even better. I love this idea, but do not believe it
> is sustainable forever as a business model, if they want to continue to be a
> major provider. Some day there will be a K4 or whatever (not sure if they
> will get to a K9 <g>) and it will become difficult to spread their resources
> to cover new development and feature creep on earlier models with a limited
> staff.
>
> So, to me, the good news is that there are other options. Throughout the Ten
> Tec model roll out process, there have been outside folk, not many, but all
> it takes is a talented few, who provided third party software/firmware
> products that addressed issues or desires of owners of TT equipment that the
> factory didn't provide. Unfortunately, they can't get into this if the
> manufacturer continues to provide free upgrades at every turn.
>
> So, with any luck, if Ten-Tec has really stopped O II development work, and
> it wouldn't surprise me if they have met their specs, etc. perhaps someone
> else will jump in and respond to users' perceived needs.
>
> Regards, Joel
> Joel R. Hallas, W1ZR
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