I just went back to the beginning of my watching this reflector--I was and
am still considering the purchase of an O-VII to replace the venerable Omni
VI+ . I started watching this to learn about the rig through the eyes of
others. In this year I have learned the following: 1. The rig is great, it
does the job it was designed to do. 2. Or, the rig sucks, because the user
is computer illiterate or technology challenged.
On the subject of the Orion software, it is even more obvious that many
hams haven't the slightest idea of how two computer-based machines
communicate with one another. I can't believe that one person, never mind
scores of them, think that a serial connection communicates slower than
using carrier pigeons, and that such behavior is poor programming by
Ten-Tec, when the problem is simple: the rig owner is clueless as to how
to set up for and to perform the upgrade, so they blame it on the rig
manufacturer. One guy blamed a tuner problem on software! (even knowing his
20+ year old antenna had bad connections!!??) (I erased it, but seem to
remember a tile of "buggy software problem in new release" .For God's sake,
read the directions! (all of them, and if you don't know what a parity bit
is or what is meant by flow control settings when setting up a serial
connection, take five minutes to understand what you are doing, don't just
skip over that paragraph!) If all else fails, think about your observations
a bit before firing off a "Ten-Tec Sucks" posting, please. Blaming a KNOWN
crap antenna problem on Ten-Tec software is absurd.
Simply amazing, and indicative of a deep underlying concern I have about our
society: Instead of an attitude of "can do" it is now "blame your
inadequacies on someone else, preferably someone you can sue". Nobody reads
release notes, nobody understands the meaning of "Beta", nobody takes time
to learn about the computer or radio, or anything else they buy. They
expect to know how to do things by some ethereal transfer of knowledge
without effort. When things have sunk to such a low that egg farmers label
their egg cartons with the warning "contains egg", you have to wonder what
the hell is going on. Common sense isn't common any more. That's what we
get when we elect lawyers to make the laws: Laws that require more lawyers.
DUH! (whew, I feel better)
As far as Ten-Tec monitoring and/or using a reflector to communicate: at
what level of dumbness would they address their comments to? I think that
they do a pretty good job of building rigs. I know they do a great job of
repairing their stuff. Their documentation of hardware upgrades leaves a
lot to be desired, while the documentation of theory of operation is
excellent, giving me enough ammunition to solve or answer most questions.
Overall, I do business with them because their stuff is better than the
Japanese( entry to mid level )equipment. To find something that compares
with a $5k Orion you need to consider a $10k rice box. On top of that, my
cash goes to an American supporting his family, as opposed to a Japanese
family. In today's world this is an important consideration, at least to me.
I really don't think it is a manufacturer's responsibility to answer or even
acknowledge questions that they have already addressed in the documentation.
If they had a canned answer: "Read the Manual", people would complain that
they didn't read it to them. If they were read to, people would complain
about their inability to understand. If they spent enough time to help the
guy understand, he would complain about the complexity of the product. No,
I am ok with Ten-Tec avoiding this reflector--it proves they know where
effort would be wasted.
Some of you should consider going back to smoke signals! "Warning(insert
ten languages here): use of smoke signals exposes you to smoke, which could
make your eyes water. If you fall off the cliff because of watering eyes,
remember: you were warned".
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