I do not agree. I didn't buy my Omni to go horseback riding (although I have
a horse ranch in Colorado). It's a rig for the shack and occasional portable
for CQWW DX contests.
I've had a TS50, IC-706, and all the rest. Currently using an FT-900 mobile.
Yes, their plugs are held in by fasteners. I've broken fingernails and even
the plug itself, trying to pull them out. They're all different and there's
no instructions on where to squeeze or push or twist. It's a royal pain.
I say thanks to Scott for sharing that bit of information with us. My new VI+
arrived today (but I was not home to greet UPS). When I get it, I'll pull the
covers and check the plugs and filters. So what. In my 35 years of hamming,
I've never had a rig I couldn't repair myself, but some have been a nightmare
to work on. The Ten Tecs are fun to work on and it's always such a good
feeling to know I've fixed my own rig again. And I can do it myself at my
leisure, not wait 3 month for Kencomsue.
Intermittent problems are the hardest. My 961 developed an intermittent
problem in the middle of our German Christmas Contest (a 2.5 hour contest). I
survived the contest by severely pounding on the P.S. each of the 5 times it
quit. Probably cost me 20 places in the contest meaning I won't be under the
top ten this year. The problem was a cold solder joint to one of the thick
black ground wires going to the diode board. Easy to fix, but took me about 6
hours to locate. The P.S. is 8 years old. This kind of stuff happens from
time to time and with a Ten Tec, at least you can almost always fix it
yourself. When I need parts from Ten Tec, I usually get them within 4 days,
delivered to my door here in Munich Germany.
I applaud Ten Tec for their devotion to customer satisfaction.
73s
Rick
DJ0IP
----------
From: owner-tentec@contesting.com on behalf of Steve Ellington
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 8:46 PM
To: Ten-Tec Inc. Amateur Radio Sales
Cc: ku4it@bellsouth.net; tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Re: Last Chapter
> Which brings up one of those points that we always try to make about
> equipment that appears to be a little troublesome on first appearance.
>
> We have had countless incidents of circuit board cables coming
> unplugged
> during shipping for a wide variety of equipment. We do use a portable
>
> vibration shake table before shipping rigs out, to see if we can get
> cables
> to come loose before one of the commercial shipping carriers does it
> for
> us. We have seen instances numerous times (and I'm sure some of you
> reading have been on the receiving end of this) where the Omni-VI has
> been banged so hard during shipping that the crystal filters have
> popped
> out of the sockets and are rolling around inside the transceiver case.
>
>
Is it any wonder that stuff comes loose? The xtal filters have nothing
holding them in but friction on the contact pins and most of the
connectors rely on friction only. They have no locking clips. I've had
to dab some solder on the legs of my xtal filters to snug the up. Other
manufactures use bolts to hold the filters and snap lock plug/jack
assemblies. My IC-706 could withstand a horseback ride! Seems like after
25 years of making rigs this way that someone would catch on. But
regardless, I still love my Omni V....Best cw rig yet!
N4LQ
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Problems: owner-tentec@contesting.com
Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
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