Bravo Dave,
I have 2 Orion 565's in original shape. to use any of the more recent
firmware changes I must modify my radios. I am disappointed that the promise
to make the original 565 more modern have required such modification at my
expense. I have used several versions of the 1.xxx firmware and settled on
the last 2 versions issued. neither fixes the problem with SWEEP which often
shuts down the radio completely until the radio is switched off and
restarted. thus what sweep it had is seriously degraded.
both radios work well but for that one issue. as I only operate CW and
rarely PSK, I have no idea what SSB or other mode challenges there may be.
I purchased the 565 with the expectation that it would be updated timely.
none of the 1.xxx firmware versions has made the SWEEP function of the
original 565 work properly. for those of us who do not desire to modify our
radios we are left out in the dark. it would seem to me that now that no
more Orions are being built firmware could be created for those of us who
wish to keep the Orion original even at cost.
most logging software that costs is updated and one pays a premium to get
that update. I would be willing to do that for my 565's.
73 jack
ak7o
-----Original Message-----
From: David and Dianne on Comcast
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2013 2:51 PM
To: Ten Tec Reflector
Subject: Re: [TenTec] What is Ten Tec Doing Today?
Bob,
With all due respect to you and no offense
intended, this is my "op-ed" to your posting of
October 10^th . Let me first say that I am a big
and long-time TT fan (20+ years) and have owned
and still own much of their equipment...Omni V.9,
(2) Corsair II's and an Omni VII. I also enjoy
reading your comments on the reflector which are
very helpful. But I have a disagreement with your
comments on certain aspects of TT's recent
perfromance.
In May 2012 I bought my Omni VII understanding
beforehand that it was both getting
long-in-the-tooth and lacking in some
long-promised performance enhancements that I was
concerned about. Nevertheless, after discussions
with John H. at Dayton, I was assured that the
Omni VII was to be both long-lived in their
product line and soon to be improved via firmware
enhancements to address my pre-purchase concerns.I
bought one.
In the first 18 months of ownership, my Omni VII
has been a good rig and in some surprising ways
preferable to my early K3. But it needs to address
one major RX shortcoming and several other feature
enhancements. As for patience, I am near the end
of mine. Months turn to years. Nothing is done.
IMO TT has dropped the ball regarding the Omni VII
enhancements discussed long before I ever bought
mine in 2012.
As for real time sweep, while it would be a nice
and I would probably purchase one, it was never a
game changer for me as I knew what it was going
in. As for improving Ethernet performance, as I do
not use the rig remotely, it is also not of a
concern to me. But I certainly understand how it
would be a major issue if you bought your Omni VII
for this express purpose.
So then what concerns me the most with my Omni
VII? One issue is small and one is big.
The Omni VII brochure states in it, to this day
that: "/TX Speech Monitor: //Modulated IF after
filtering, processing/". The Omni VII manual
states in it, to this day that: "/A monitor
function has been provided for the operator to
listen to the sound of actual transmitted SSB
audio/".It originally performed this way but it
does not now and has not for many *_years_*. It
was quietly changed to a "pre-filtering and
pre-processing" SSB monitor long ago. Inquiries to
TT over several years by many have brought verbal
promises to have it revisited, but to date they
have not done so.
Is this a really big deal...no, but it's
disappointing to me and it's misleading to
discriminating potential buyers.
But my biggest issue with the Omni VII is its poor
RX AGC performance. The Omni VII RX AGC is highly
susceptible to QRN transient and impulse noise
spike swamping. Over the past two summers during
the height of the QRN season, it was often nearly
unusable here at my QTH.
If anyone has */never/* used a pre-DSP analog
receiver, they probably believe that this kind of
RX AGC performance is the norm and/or that the HF
bands are always this noisy. When compared to an
analog radio side by side, one will find out that
neither is the case. Thus why I keep the CII and
Omni V in the stable. I urge anyone to review the
Bob Sherwood presentation at the Drake Forum at
Dayton in 2007 as he tells the story there:
http://www.sherweng.com/index.html.
Circa late 2008, Elecraft enhanced their then new
K3 with firmware to address their impulse
transient RX AGC issue and remedied their problem
in a matter of */days/*. I have an early K3 and it
does not so suffer. Why can't Omni VII owners get
something similar without waiting months and
months and now years? The Omni VII RX AGC is
terrible in this regard.**
Ten Tec has turned the Omni VII enhancement
process into their version of "Waiting for Godot"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot).
With no more Jupiter and Orion II, the recent
shrinking of its HF transceiver product line
raises other concerns with me as well.
As many zealous TT followers have stated here
emphatically, it's TT's business and they can do
what they want. True. But it's my money and I can
spend it where I want.
IMO it's time to instill a sense of concern and
urgency with TT management. Despite what some
readers may think I have implied in these comments
above, I really do want them to continue and to be
successful....and to be better.
What's Ten Tec doing today? I'm not at all sure.73
de N1LQ-Dave
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