Jerry,
It sounds like you need to borrow a loaner Orion from another ham if
possible, and try it, and then decide.
Many owners do not seem to report the issues you have. Maybe you got a
particular radio that has bugs. That happens with any manufactured
product. Particularly as designers combine software and hardware, off the
wall issues can surface that do not appear in every version of the design.
That naturally comes about due to variences in crystals, temperature
environment, even humidity, as well as slight variations in assemblies and
components.
This is not confined to ham radios. We, in the R&D business, have seen it
with low production commercial scientific instrumentation that sells for a
LOT more money! It really has been more common since instruments started
including software to function.
You might consider buying a used Orion, and then comparing the two side by
side, and keeping the best of the pair. There are just too many folks that
post with no problems with their Orions to make a blanket indictment of the
model.
The same comments were made years back about the Scout, (that some people
had certain problems), when I bought my Scout. It has NEVER had the
attributed problems of the design that some people reported. Obviously
there was a production variation, and this was a very simple analog radio.
-Stuart
K5KVH
|