John
I received my Argo V with TCXO on Friday and I have been playing around with
it also. I am really impressed with first impressions. It truly amazes me
what the filter does down at 200 hz on cw, it really does a good job on 40
meters at night. The SSB receive also sounds wonderful, kind of like a tube
rig. I have not run it through all the paces yet, but I am running N4PY's
software with it, and it makes the rig that much nicer. Having all the
memories and options a mouse click away just makes the rig more fun. My main
rig is a newly acquired Corsair II, and I am very happy with it, but the
Argo V may turn out to be the main rig? I run QRP CW almost entirely and the
Argo V does that very nicely. The AM SWL broadcasts are very good on the rig
also, it sounds very good, and with the software, you can store as many SWL
stations as you feel like typing in. I do miss RF control on it, but right
now it does not seem to be a problem. I think Ten Tec has done a good job
with this rig, and I do appreciate them for keeping on supporting the QRP
crowd.
73
Ronnie
KE4VPN "A wanna-be CW operator"
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Rippey" <w3uls@3n.net>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 4:44 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Argo V--first impressions
> Hello:
>
> I received from Ten-Tec yesterday a new (demo) Argonaut V with TCXO, which
> I got primarily for CW. Not surprisingly, the QSK is excellent and sooo
> quiet. What came as a pleasant surprise is the quality of reception on CW
> and SSB. On CW, the software filtering allows tremendous flexibility in
> cruising the CW portion of a band--you can start at say 1000 kHz and then
> when you find something, narrow down to 200 Hz if need be with just a
twist
> of the Multi knob. A Passband Tuning feature allows movement of the
> passband up to nearly +/- 3 kHz with a flick of the same Multi knob. In
> neither case does the fine CW tone become "ringy." Sensitivity is
> excellent, and the receiver has a low noise floor to go along with it. On
> SSB receive, audio quality is quite high.
>
> I haven't had time to do much transmitting, so no comments there. (I'll be
> very interested in the ARRL lab's report on the Argonaut's CW keying
> envelope, etc., when it appears. I suspect Mike Tracy & Co. will go over
> the new rig with a fine-tooth comb.)
>
> The panel, display and knobs and buttons are all first rate, as is the
manual.
>
> If wishes were horses: Since the Argonaut serves triple-purposes as a
> homebase/portable/mobile HF rig, I'd like to see Ten-Tec build on this
> success by adding: (1) dual receive, (2) max 100 watts output (instead of
> 20), and (3) providing a somewhat larger desktop footprint. In other
words,
> a poor man's Orion, priced somewhere around the Mark V Field.
>
> Next week's ARRL CW DX contest will provide an acid test for the
Argonaut's
> front end, and I fully expect that it will not hold up as well as say, my
> FT-1000MP Mark V. But in terms of fun and all-around usefulness, I suspect
> the Argonaut is going to be hard to beat.
>
> 73,
> John, W3ULS
>
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