I have owned an Omni VI+, still own a Corsair, a Corsair II and an Orion
among others. I am a cw dx chaser and sometimes contester who has been
doing it for 40 years now.
If you like to ragchew and work non contest periods on the cw bands the
Corsair II is hard to beat. The Omni VI+ is a dream. If you work weak
signal work, 160 cw, dabble or are serious about contesting then the
Orion is without question the best receiver on the market. You could
not pry my Orion off my operating table for anything. The receiver is
indeed THAT good. I have also gotten so used to two receivers it would
be hard to fall back. For a "casual" op however Orion might be
overkill. There is a learning curve to the Orion and you do have to
think about it when operating so that you set the parameters the way you
want them or to optimize performance.
On the other hand the best of all worlds is to have both if you can
swing it. An Orion for serious work and a Corsair II with remote VFO
(or an Omni VI) for casual operating. As you know the weakness of the
Corsair/II is lack of computer control/interface. If you do not need
that it is the "almost perfect" casual cw radio. In my eyes there was
no prettier radio ever produced than the CII/VFO/425 amp combination
sitting side to side on a white desk. Sounds and works almost as good
as it looks to the user.
Don't let the "its gotta be perfect" crowd here scare you off. The
Orion is a very solid performer with some few quirks that TT is working
on. Having lived through the evolution of the Orion firmware for almost
four years now it amazes me how far we have come. If you need the
receiver and are willing to "learn the radio" don't hesitate to obtain
an Orion. One mans opinion, there will be others and many who will
disagree with me. That is why we have choices. Good luck with your
decision. 73 bob de w9ge
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