John,
I am very pleased that your ORION experience has been a good one for you. It
is clear that when the ORION is working properly, it is indeed a very good
radio with excellent performance. Jim Reid seems equally enthusiastic over
his radio.
I just want to comment on the continued theme that I see in many postings
that Icom took three different radios "to get it right" while the ORION has
been able to correct, at least in part, some of its problems with software
patches alone to a single hardware model.
Keep in mind that the 756, 756PRO, 756PRO2 and 746/746PRO are not the same
radio nor were they brought out to solve successively any particular
problems. Icom chose to make hardware and software changes and improvements
incrementally and to do so with successive models of similar architecture.
Each model has different features and capabilities. This has not been an
"effort to get it right" which seems to be a common misconception. Any
evolutionary process, if successful, results in improvements as it
progresses.
That being the case, one also notes that Ten Tec has elected to go through
four successive hardware models in their IF-DSP architecture efforts: the
Pegasus, the Jupiter, the Argonaut V, and the ORION.
While they are all of the same basic IF-DSP architecture, they nonetheless
were produced as separate hardware models brought out successively in order
to add performance capabilities and features that were impractical with the
hardware/software of the previous models.
One might note as well that the Pegasus, the Jupiter and now the ORION are
all, by Ten Tec definition, "software-defined radios."
Since these are all software defined radios why was not the Pegasus software
simply upgraded to bring that radio model to the capabilities of the ORION?
Why was entirely new hardware required for a "software-defined radio?"
For the same reason that new hardware was required to bring forth an ORION,
new hardware was required to bring forth a PRO and then a PRO2 and
subsequently a 7800.
Thus far, the amateur market has seen only "software-controlled" radios, and
while much can be done to alter and add performance and control behavior
with software, the basic functional capabilities of the radios have been
determined largely by their hardware, not just their software.
The point to all this is not to put either Icom or Ten Tec down or up for
their efforts, but to recognize that these radios are of a complexity
unthought of a decade ago for the amateur market. They have differences in
performance, price, features and other areas. They are not trivial to
design, implement or produce. Nor are they all that easy to operate without
study and practice to gain experience.
As amateurs, we are fortunate to be able to choose among such excellent
radios to select what suits our individuals needs best. This new generation
of gear has finally given us the ability to configure our radios to suit
*our* needs and operating styles instead of forcing us to adapt to some
arbitrary design lacking little if any configurability.
Neither Icom nor Ten Tec has committed any unpardonable sins by bringing out
successive hardware models in order to enhance performance and add
operational capability. Both have followed similar paths and both have
produced excellent radios.
There will soon be the IC-7800 on the domestic market as yet another stage
in the IF-DSP evolution of Icom radios. I see nothing amiss with Ten Tec
responding with an ORION II if they judge that a redesign to that extent is
justified.
73/72, George
Amateur Radio W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13QE
"In the 57th year and it just keeps getting better!"
<mailto:w5yr@att.net>
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Buck" <kh7t@arrl.net>
To: <mark@microenh.com>; "tentec" <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 3:58 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Re: Continuing Orion evaluation
<snip>
> Remember that it took ICOM three generations of new radios to get an
> acceptable result. 756, 756 Pro, 756 Pro II. ICOM did the same thing
> with the 706 series. The Basic Orion outperforms the ProII although some
> will prefer the ProII interface. I believe something similar can be said
> about the FT1000 series also. It cost some people a lot more than the
> cost of the Orion to get the benefit of the evolutionary process. I
> really expect the interface on the Orion to evolve with the help of
> customer feedback without having to buy a new radio.
<snip>
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