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Re: [TenTec] Orion and SSB

To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Orion and SSB
From: "Tommy" <aldermant@alltel.net>
Reply-to: tentec@contesting.com
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 21:04:52 -0500
List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
Hi Robert and Happy Holidays,

Glad to hear things are improving with your Orion. Kinda hard to equate moving your WiFi that operates at 2.8GHz to reducing the noise in your SubRx? But you really never know what other unfiltered 'garbage' those things might be producing! Fortunately/unfortunately, I had been living with dial-up out here in the sticks until this past August when I finally got DSL here. Then installed WiFi router, sitting three foot away from my Orion and other rigs, and did not notice any change is noise level when I hooked that up. I've also been using the Astron 70 amp linear supply since I got this station set up; it's an overkill to just use to power the Orion or Omni 6 or the Plus, but it's the kind of overkill I like to have. I did hear and read a service note from Astrom about their recommendation to physically ground the negative lead to the power supply chassis, but have not done that yet on my power supply. By the way, I also have ferrite clamp on's on every lead going to my Orion, even including the speaker leads and never saw any improvement here. Actually I did not expect to see any improvement because I have no RFI problems in my station. But then too, I've never seen ferrites that were able to cure firmware problems!

The failures you have at 'crucial times' is one of my main complaint's about the Orion. Since I love to do contesting, that is just something I did not pay $3500 to have to put up with. Plus Ten Tec still has not lifted a finger yet to try to solve the issue of running their own Titan 3 amplifier in the Orion's keying loop.

I now have a solution for me...I recently purchased a late serial number Icom IC-781...it has extremely clean receiver audio, the QSK at normal speeds and at high speeds is just excellent, and so far, I have not yet had to do a Master Reset! Strange as it may seem to some on this reflector, my Corsair 2, my Omni 6, and my Omni 6 Plus seem to work flawless here in this set up and even with the Titan 3 in those rig's keying loop. I just must be doing something wrong since the Titan 3 works in three different Ten Tec rigs keying loop, but will continue to randomly fail when used with the Orion keying loop.

Nope, for me, the Orion will probably never be 'my radio'.

Opps!! I better shut up before Toby tells me I should go to the Icom reflector.

Hope you have a great Christmas Robert!

73,

Tom - W4BQF

"So you have enemies?
Good.
That means you have stood up for something,
sometime in your life."
--Sir Winston Churchill--

----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Carroll" <rlcarroll@patmedia.net>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 8:22 PM
Subject: RE: [TenTec] Orion and SSB



Hi, Tom-

The outcome here has been looking up. After the last firmware load the
receiver was definitely a better performer but I still had horrendously
timed rx and sub rx failures--usually when calling the VU4 or some nice 160m
DX. By the time I would get things running again the dx had gone.


Finally the subreceiver started to fail in "noisy" mode. It actually
sounded like it was alive but there were no signals--and the band like noise
was fake, because if you disconnected the antenna the noise on the main rx
disappeared but the sub rx still had the noise--which at times could sound
like ignition noise, thermal noise, or an old motorboating 1930's antique
with dried out bypasses. TenTec decided this was a hardware fault and sent
me a replacement though used board. This cured the noisy failure but the
"silent failure" for both receivers and loss of transmit and some other
truly bizarre failures occurred. Ten Tec called and said the Astron 35
supply I happened to be using often had a faulty connection between the
negative lead and metal and suggested I change supplies. I moved to an
Astron 70A unit and the situation seemed marginally improved, but again I
had failures--of course at crucial times. I had already put ferrite on the
lead to the amp relay as I had seen some mail saying several people had
found this crucial. Still the failures. So I put ferrite on everything
coming into the Orion including the data port. I also moved a WiFi
router/amp which was nearby. Since then it has not failed in any way--and
this is over a four day period. This was unheard of for me. So, I am not
sure just what I did that helped, or even for sure that it won't sink back
into the former condition tomorrow, but I am greatly encouraged. To top it
off I managed to work the VU4 this AM. A nice Christmas present.


My son-in-law and daughter just got back form a few days in Atlanta and
bought a house while they were there. I guess I better accelerate my pace
of getting this place ready to sell.


'73 and Happy Holidays
Bob W2WG

-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Tommy
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 7:40 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Orion and SSB


Amazing isn't it? The only complaint's you hear come from people who
are having problems....man...that must be a brand new concept!


Tom - W4BQF

"So you have enemies?
Good.
That means you have stood up for something,
sometime in your life."
--Sir Winston Churchill--

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Gwin" <jtgwin@comcast.net>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Orion and SSB



Exactly the same here - full legal power, Heil mic, no problem,
unsolicited complimentary reports.

And did you notice, its usually the same folks having trouble and
complaining?

Mine works fine. Thanks, T-T.

-W4SK

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Spencer" <ronspencer@nc.rr.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 6:10 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Orion and SSB



We often hear of the troubles people are having but rarely do we have that balanced with comments from those not having trouble.

I have the Orion and am using, with no troubles, a heil pro
headset. In fact
even got some compliments on the audio during the 10 meter
contest. And yes,
that's running 1500 watts.

Best of luck to those having trouble in tracking it down.

73 Ron N4XD

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