I came very close to buying an Eagle. And, the reasons I didn't have
largely been covered by Rick. The deciding factor was the lack of
keyboard frequency entry. Another is that I have large hands, and the
front panel was a bit crowded. Instead of trying to make microscopic
radios, Ten Tec might want to look at a past, though unjustly maligned
pair of products, the Delta II and Argonaut II radios. These units are
small, but have most of the front panel capabilities of the much larger
Omni V and VI units. Using a slightly larger front panel on the line of
the Argo II on the Eagle Plus would go a long way on making these radios
a lot more attractive to people like me. And the controls on the older
units are much more intuitively obvious than those on many of their
newer products. I rarely had to look at the cheat sheet for my Argonaut
II, but have to keep the manuals for the Omni VII and Argonaut VI within
reach. If I want to change the CW speed on the Omni VII or Argonaut VI,
I have to consult the manual for the sequence of adjustments needed to
do this. With my older Ten Tec rigs, I adjust a knob. I wound up
buying an Omni VII, and once I discovered that it offered little in the
way of increased performance over my Corsair II, it ended up on the
shelf. The Corsair II does not have keyboard frequency entry, but it is
so easy to use well.
My Argonaut II is sitting in Ten Tec Service. I'm looking forward to
its return, fixed.
I am glad that the Argonaut VI is apparently going to be retained. Those
are a subset of the Eagle, and are one phenomenal little radio!
My $0.02
Steve WA9JML
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