> This forum sure has been getting ugly lately , with all the Orion
> bashing . I don't have a dog in this fight as I don't own
> an Orion (
> yet ) so I cant really comment on whether they are good , or
> as bad as some seem to think
I see it less as a dog fight than a difference in expectation.
The list is a mixed bag.
There are a few who have real live honest-to-goodness valid issues with the
current state of firmware because of how they operate, or the environment in
their radio room, or its interface to other equipment they use --- any
number of things. And there ARE still some issues which we all hope will be
taken care of in the next major firmware release. These situations are
real, but fairly few in number.
There are several who have never owned one but still like to complain
because it didn't seem to work right the one time they fiddled with one
(reasons unknown, but the operative work is "fiddle), and (worse) some
who've never even touched one but bash the radio anyway. There are some who
used to own one, got fed up with a firmware issue or another, and still
chime in about how bad the radio is, even though there have been monumental
improvements in many areas since they passed theirs on to someone else.
It's called living in the past. There are some who still own it, but just
like to bitch about it. There are others who just like to bitch, because
that's what they do :-)
There are some like me who have not experienced any
Amateur-Radio-threatening issues with the radio -- certainly nothing that
requires kicking the dog to find relief. It just keeps on running, without
daily resets and other calamities. If you say that on the list, however,
you get bashed for just being dumb or someone insinuates you are having
"relations" with an employee of T-T :-)
There are some who seem to have an issue with the radio as it impacts the
"professional business" of contesting, and there are others who run contests
VERY successfully without a hitch. Your guess is as good as mine why there
is a disparity. I have my opinions, but won't get into that in this post
:-) And there are some who are unhappy that it doesn't work exactly like
the you-name-it Zephyr1000-Mark14 radio they used to own. Perhaps some day
we'll have some IEEE or ISO "standard radio", but until then the reason
mankind has survived this long is directly related to flexibility and
adaptability, and this particular gripe always causes me to reflect on the
fact that Darwin was right.
Then there is the argument about whether the Orion is an SDR. The naysayers
always hold the Flex up as the example of a "real" SDR, but the Orion is
every bit as much an SDR as the Flex. Those who don't think so have just
never looked at a block diagram of both radios from antenna to speaker --
they're all googly-eyed at the 52" HDTV hooked up to the laptop. But we all
define our world view to suit our politics. The Flex has MANY problems of
its own (usually ignored in these discussions, by the way), not the least of
which is that you don't really want to run any CW on it -- even the
developers admit that's a trouble spot!
I haven't figured out what's up. Maybe someone smarter than I am can get a
handle on the "Orion psychology", and why this list draws such a diverse
field of opinion :-)
Some days it makes an interesting and sometimes fun read. Some days you
just want to unsubscribe :-(
I haven't had a day yet where I even remotely considered some other radio
though :-)
Grant/NQ5T
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