C. J. Hawley wrote:
Vernon A. Hatley wrote:
>
> Scott,
>
> Since Ten Tec is now monitoring this reflector I have a question that has
> bugged me since I bought my Omni V; maybe I'll finally get an answer. :-)
Gee, what a great idea. I have never been able to get a good answer about my TT
auto tuner. If you turn it off and then change the position of the antenna
switch and then turn it on, the roller inductor will invariably run and the
tuner will need to have the stepping motor-roller inductor re-zeroed. If the
tuner is turned off and on without changing anything (the antenna switch or the
band info....this is really just an address for a tuner setting), then the
tuner will come on in the bypass mode (I think). You always have to switch it
to a different antenna then and then back to the one you wanted (which is
usually the one you had when you turned it on) when you first turn it on. It
doesn't help to just do a interrupt to the micro without changing the antenna
position (address). It won't retune with out going to a different address with
an int and then back to the original address where it was with an int. This is
a pain. It would be better if it just did some kind of initialization when
turned on and then went to the tuning position (address) that the antenna
switch and band info dictated. I have tried a "new" digital board from TT and
it behaves the same as mine (or that's not the problem area). I have the latest
version of the micro.
Another problem is that the eeprom "fills up" according to TT. Anyway, it
ceases to allow you to use some of the memory addresses and replacing the
eeprom fixes this. So far the TT solution is to install a socket for the prom
on the digital board.
I like this tuner. I wish it were a money maker for TT so they could afford
to debug the design, but not many people would put up with these problems
especially after spending $1000. I think many of them would take a loss and get
rid of the thing so that someone could buy it for $600....the way I got mine.
If the thing had been debugged after initial sales maybe it wouldn't have had
to be discontinued which seems to be TT's solution to the problem. Maybe that
is the only short term cost effective solution for TT for a troublesome
product. The long term results seem to be that all the guys on 75M that used to
be hot for TT gear (buy USA, etc.) are all using Yaesu, KW and Icom's now. One
thing that really bugged most of them was being 50 to 100 Hertz off the
displayed frequency with the Omni's and having TT treat them like they were
wrong to care (who cares why these guys wanted to be on freq?....the point
should have been that they were the customers and what they wanted, which was
common technology in other brands of competitive products, was what you would
think that the company should specify in their products). I am sympathetic to
the difficulty that a 'small' company like TT has trying to make the almost
prohibitive investment in product development costs. It has to be almost a
labor of love. The consumer has his/her financial limitations though. It seems
like the guys who run CW get along with the TT xceivers and the phone guys go
nuts. Another (phone) guy had the WHOLE outfit, Paragon, Titan, etc. The main
reason he blew his stack and dumped the WHOLE outfit for a 940 and an Alpha was
that the Paragon lost it's memory in a day or so and TT couldn't help him. He
said that the Titan blew up also which he could have weathered if not for the
frustration he had over the Paragon. He got to know the UPS guy personally. He
claims that TT owns UPS and they create business by selling this stuff. The
tuner I have was sent back to TT by the original owner at least once and also
he underlined the roller inductor rezero instructions in the manual. I know why
he took his loss, and I said to myself that I was smarter and more
understanding of the company's problems than him. I could get around these
annoying problems and enjoy the good things about it. Then I forget that I
changed the antenna from the last time it was on and then I have to go through
the zeroing process again......and I think to myself that I maybe I won't some
day get an Omni XI after all. Maybe I don't want to bypass the IF supply, hear
myself in the power supply speaker, be off 50 Hz after setting the freq
yesterday, etc., and all that stuff. I'll just continue to use the 990 (which I
hooked up to band switch the Hercules amp) and work
on my antenna or something else that isn't like reinventing the
wheel.....besides I still have an Omni C that I haven't quite eliminated the
loud pop that strong signals used to cause in the audio if I want to work on
the wheel.
Chuck, KE9UW
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