Good afternoon!
Interesting reading this afternoon including one of the longest messages
I've seen
posted here yet to date from W5YR. I'd refer back to the technical discussion
of the Orion posted to Doug Smith's web site at
www.doug-smith.net/orion.htm about the Orion architecture. We've chosen
what we've chosen for the Orion's design for no other reason than it simply
affords the best receiver performance possible from today's technology.
If DSP alone were good enough to achieve the numbers we want to achieve
for close-in RX performance, we would have been more than happy to take
that route. Unfortunately, a receiver that lets signals into a DSP chain under
the skirts of a wide BW roofing filter is presently not going to meet the
receiver
performance demands of an "above the top-of-the-line" HF transceiver.
Most of the programming effort for the Orion user interface is being
done by Gary Barbour AC4DL and Eric Guinn AC4LS. Doug Smith
certainly is involved but not in the actual coding of the interface, etc., that
we're working on at present. Doug and Jack Burchfield have been focusing
on the hardware side of Orion and on directing the seemingly endless series
of testing we've been running 7 days a week for quite some time now.
Q: So where are we on this thing, anyway?
A: The message we've been delivering all along is that the hardware is done and
we're continuing to work on the user interface - but I think we better be a
little
more clear on what we're actually doing at present because saying
"working on the software" isn't really the whole picture.
Hardware: At the moment we have finished, serial-numbered production line
units that we have been using. These are not engineering proto units; these
are the actual completed transceivers. I personally have been using two
different S/N's at home on nights and weekends. We have quietly shipped
several completed serial numbered units out to people outside of Ten-Tec's
employ that we feel will provide useful feedback on the performance of
the Orion - and so far they have, and will continue to do so. Two of those
units are in possession of people who are regular readers of this forum.
As we've been doing updates (often multiple times within the course of a day)
we've been flashing the rigs and continuing the testing process.
Are we happy with the performance level of the radio? Absolutely.
Software: We're continuing to refine the software. I think much of the
confusion over where we are with the Orion is over what exactly we're
doing at the moment. (Obviously!) The software we're working on is
the user interface. The programming for running the receivers...essentially
the primary basic functions of the rig are long since finished. They were
done even before we let the radios on the air at the Ten-Tec hamfest back
in September. What we've been working on for the last three months is
the user interface for the radio. How the screen looks. The presentation
of all the data on the screen. The spectrum scope. Bandstacking
registers....an endless series of decisions have to be made as part of the
process that aren't even part of the coding for the radio itself. Do we
like the AGC action? Does the RIT knob take too many turns to go
from one place to another? How is the autotuner actuated or
de-actuated? What do user profile memories consist of? Etc.
What often happens is what we believe we want on paper and in concept
isn't user friendly once it's been coded into the radio. There have been
numerous instances when we've used a control on the radio that we
acknowledge works correctly, yet we're not happy with. This means
re-thinking, and more software changes, and more testing. And on and on.
Unfortuately, in our quest to get the transceiver to be exactly what we
want it to be, we've gone past the original anticipated delivery date.
We were probably both a little too optimistic to start with about the
delivery time and didn't believe that the writing of the user interface for
the rig was going to continue on this long, but continue it does.
We're still anticipating shipping the Orion in the next few weeks. The
user interface software will certainly be completed soon and we'll begin
shipping the rest of the units out. We appreciate your patience - and
as always, I'm as close as our (800) line if you want to talk to me,
Monday through Friday 8-5:30 Eastern time.
73
Scott Robbins, W4PA
Amateur Radio Product Manager
Ten-Tec, Inc.
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