I suspect you are missing something. All that sun noise, atmospheric noise, and
all the hash and key clicks from other rigs is spread over a lot of kHz. So
yes, the background noise level will be greater than it could be and should be.
But since the Orion's reciever is so good, most of that noise will not find its
way to the operators ears - making life much more pleasant to those fortunate
operators who have an Orion now.
I'm not looking at the PROII's test results but as I remember them the reciever
rates a high average only. And that was my impression when we had one over for
a direct comparison. The Orion dug signals out of the noise we could not copy
on the competition. It was also my impression that the PROII's transmitter,
like the PRO before it, is far quieter than say, an MP, but it's not the
quietest transmitter on the air by any means. And it's certainly not in the
same league as the Orion.
And yes, while the ideal would be for every contest station to be equipped with
an Orion (happy day - the big guns on 160 might be able to hear my 100 watts to
a GAP under their receiver's internal racket) or a Heath or Hallicrafters setup
out of the 1950's, it's going to take a while. Both because Orion production is
limited - and by the fact that at least some contesters are so wedded to "their
brand" that they will wait until their favorites introduce a new world beater
rig that will approach, meet, or possibly exceed the new standard of
performance. If that takes five years.
But eventually the day will come when the last of those noisy, clicky, hissy
QRM machines that infest the bands during contests have been relegated to the
early evening ragchewers or are gathering dust on the used equipment shelves.
Hasten the day!
Since the bar HAS been raised, and since the Orion's reciever also sets new
performance standards, I suspect Amateur Radio will eventually be the better
for the improved performance. Until then - we can enjoy the new "big dawg" on
the bands.
73 Pete Allen AC5E
> The ARRL lab has found the Orion's transmitted phase noise to be the lowest
> of any rig ever tested there. It's -140 db/Hz from the get-go. If I read
> the ARRL Handbook correctly (2004 edition), transmitted phase noise is a
> critter that is much harder to tame than receiver phase noise because you
> can use crystal filters in the receiver signal chain to limit the bandwidth
> getting to the IF, etc. So going by this reasoning, the engineers at
> Ten-Tec have set a new very high bar on transmitted signal junk while the
> RECEIVER phase noise of the Orion must be below the ability of any lab to
> measure . . . (?)
>
> But what does this get you when the airwaves are full of solar and man-made
> junk? Looking at past ARRL Lab reports, all but the ICOM PROs show quite a
> lot of transmitted phase noise. So in a contest, such as the upcoming 160
> meter deal, there are lots of signals transmitting a lot of junk. Nirvana
> would be if all the contestants were using Orions, or ICOM Pros, but
> they're not. So the wonderful low phase noise of the Orion's receiver sits
> there underneath all the signal traffic that is being received and processed.
>
> Isn't the end result that a receiver with much less attractive phase noise
> numbers can probably perform just as well as the Orion in the current noisy
> signal environment? Is this truer for phone than CW?
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> 73,
> John, W3ULS
>
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