> I have never had another station tell me that My Kenwood, or Icom
> sounded great. There was never any discussion much about that item.
I own mostly Ten Tec. I am not a "fan" however, and from my vantage
point I see the Ten Tec design philosophy as one of certain engineering
tradeoffs - made differently than the Japanese rigs. Now, that said,
I have gotten many more comments on my Kenwood audio than on any of
my OMNI's, Corsairs, etc. I do get good audio comments with my
Ten Tec gear, but it is because of the decent shaping of the 2.4 kHz
bandwidth filters used for SSB filtering. The Kenwood (930, 940 and
others) sport a 2.7 kHz filter and some even use wider filters (remember
SWAN?) and IF you have a wide receiver filter, you can hear the
difference. If you just use your 2.4 kHz receive filter you cannot
tell, and the Ten Tec audio, optimized for your listening pleasure
at that bandwidth, sounds wonderful. If you listen at the wider,
say 3.0 kHz bandwidth, my Kenwood rig will sound much more natural
and it is a real pleasure. Just an engineering decision that works
that way.
> I think most American companies still build good stuff. Like the company I
I agree wholeheartedly, and I respect, but don't give any technical
credence to many hams almost "religious" dedication to Japanese rigs.
I similarly "respect" the religious aspects of any such dedication to
Ten Tec. Its fine, except when engineering enters the discussion.
I own, and am proud of, a couple of non Ten Tec rigs. However, when I
want to do CW (especially) in a weak signal or high QRM environment,
I will use my Ten Tecs. I am also proud of owning decent American
gear, but I recognize some of the limitations of such an approach.
Ah, I feel better now!
Clark
WA3JPG
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