I was fortunate enough to be one of those early in the door on Friday
at Dayton. I went right to the Ten-Tec booth to see the Pegasus. The
6N2 actually got me more excited, as I have been wanting to try
multi-mode 6 meters and 2 meters.
I did talk at length to one of the Ten-Tec staff about the Pegasus.
My first question was about the software. Would the source be
available? He said that the source was not available. He did say
that the receiver was patterned after the receiver in the RX-320, in
terms of its software. Thus, it is programmed, I recall, in Visual
Basic. I asked if they had any plans to port the software to Linux in
the near future. He thought not.
Even so, if at some point those among the Ten-Tec followers who know
how to program in Visual Basic, may at some point be able to extend
the capabilities of the radio. Perhaps at some point Ten-Tec could be
convinced to go the open source route. If that were to happen, who
knows what the limits of the Pegasus' capabilities would be in the
hands of a creative group of programmers.
Incidently, while I was oohing and aahing over the radio, some ham to
my right was pressuring Scott to be the first one to put in an order
for the Pegasus. I guess I now know who it was. Wish I had
introduced myself. Scott, of course, needed no pressuring.
In my eyes, it was a real neat rig. Not to replace my Omni or my
Delta, or even my TS50s mobile, but for what it is in its own right.
But, I think that 6N2 was a great idea as well. Throughout the day
there was always a large crowd around the Ten-Tec booth. I also got a
Ten-Tec hat (no, they were not free). Incidently, Kachina also had a
nice display with demos, etc. While the Kachina is ahead at present
in features, it certainly costs more than the Pegasus.
Finally, the Ten-Tech person told me that the Pegasus could multi-task
with whatever other software one might want to use to run logging or
contest programs, so long as the other software was windows compliant
and able to multi-task as well. The number of available serial ports,
and the devices using them, will need to be addressed by the operator,
as the Pegasus does require one serial port. I understand that lots
of logging/contest software also requires a serial port to run. Wish
I had a digital camera. I would have taken a couple of pics and made
them available to those on the reflector.
Pete, NO2D
Pewee Valley, KY
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