Bill,
I'll make a fuller report soon, but the Orion did well for me too. I agree
it wasn't magical enough to get rid of the lids who plunked down 50 Hz from
my run frequency, but it did fine in most other respects. No question that
the front end held up marvelously well under severely crowded band
conditions. Using a DSP setting of about 300 Hz I was able to squeeze in
between loud stations on 40m -- never been able to do that with 250 Hz
filters on other rigs because the ringing and insertion loss would kill any
chance of hearing weak stations. The only problem is that everyone else
isn't running an Orion, so some would complain when I got too close. Once I
got used to it, the Binaural RX was incredible for dealing with large
pileups. By the way, several times the NB was amazingly effective at
eliminating those horrible key clicks. I would have to say that I didn't
hear the usual number of clicks this year, which leads me to believe that
with other rigs at least half the "clicks" are due to failure of the front
end. The ones that got through this weekend were must have originated at the
transmit end. Try the NB sometime -- I couldn't believe how well it works
for this.
I must also put in a plug for my trusty 1000D, which got demoted from run
radio to S&P radio. It's wonderful for S&P and puts the 1000MP I was using
for that purpose to shame.
73, Dick WC1M
> -----Original Message-----
> From: by way of Bill Tippett <btippett@alum.mit.edu>
> [mailto:webform@b4h.net]
> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 7:14 AM
> To: orion@contesting.com; tentec@contesting.com
> Subject: [TenTec] Orion in CQWW CW
>
>
> CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
> I'll write more about Orion later but thought you might
> like to see these early results. Scott W4PA had a very nice
> SOAB score (7.78M) operating NT1Y but I haven't seen the
> other top scores yet.
>
> 73, Bill W4ZV
>
> Call: W4ZV
> Operator(s): W4ZV
> Station: W4ZV
>
> Class: SOSB/10 HP
> QTH: NC
> Operating Time (hrs): 24
>
> Summary:
> Band QSOs Zones Countries
> ------------------------------
> 160:
> 80:
> 40:
> 20:
> 15:
> 10: 1593 34 122
> ------------------------------
> Total: 1593 34 122 Total Score = 707,148
>
> Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
>
> Comments:
>
> Hee hee hee! Just when we thought 10 was dead it up and
> surprises us even more than in the SSB weekend. If my memory
> is correct, this would have been a new record in 1999 (but
> about 30% down from my 2000 record). Conditions to JA were
> MUCH better than in SSB but they were still quite weak and I
> got a good chance to try Orion's NR on signals at the noise
> floor. I missed Zones 18, 21,
> 23, 26,
> 28 and 29. Conditions were there for 21, 28 and 29 but I
> never came across
> them
> since I was running most of the time. I was pleasantly
> surprised to have a VU2 call just as in the SSB weekend. I
> missed Zone 40 in the SSB, but worked 4
> TF's
> this weekend!
>
> This was my first CW contest with Orion and it performed just
> as well as in the SSB contest. On Sunday, I got sandwiched
> between a couple of loud EU's that I am quite certain would
> have wilted the MP's front end. I would probably have moved
> with the MP but I just stayed put with Orion and cranked the
> roofing filter down from my normal 1000 Hz setting to 500 Hz
> and occasionally 250 Hz. Unfortunately Orion is not magic and
> cannot remove the bad clicks and phase noise that some
> stations seem to have in contests! I am generally not a
> big fan
> of DSP stuff, but I found Noise Reduction was quite useful
> for very weak
> signals
> at the noise floor.
>
> After both CQ WW weekends, I've now graduated from my Orion
> Learner's Permit to an actual Driver's License. ;-) The
> next step is to use it in the world's toughest receiver
> test...the CQ 160 CW.
>
> 73, Bill W4ZV
>
>
>
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