[TenTec] Orion Warmup for CQ WW CW

[Bill Tippett <btippett@alum.mit.edu>]

        Decided to warmup using Orion on 10 meters in the LZ DX
Contest today, and discovered some interesting settings while
making about 120 QSO's (mostly weak EU):

	Case 1 - some atmospheric noise on the band when it first opened.

Roofing - 1000 Hz (just sounds better to me than if 500 is selected)
DSP BW - 600 Hz
Threshold - 192 uV
NR - 1
Decay 40 dB/S

Unless I adjusted Threshold way up with NR on, I got some strange
effects of Orion bringing the noise up when there was no station there.
When someone would call, it made it difficult to copy them until the
AGC (or whatever) adjusted.  If I turned Threshold to the max 192 uV,
everything worked fine and NR still knocked the noise down nicely
without the background noise coming up.  BTW, the hardware NB
works great if there are no strong signals on the band to create
distortion problems (which will NOT be the case in the CQ WW except
possibly when the band first opens and closes).

	Case 2 - No significant noise

Same settings as above EXCEPT:
NR Off
Threshold at 7-10 uV (until background noise drops).

        The moral to this story is don't be afraid to adjust Threshold
way UP to whatever works best.  The 0.5-1 uV settings recommended
in  the Optimization article are way off most of the time IMHO.  I'm sure
I'll learn a lot in the contest but I'm glad I had a chance for a warmup
today first.  This is going to be FUN next weekend!

				73 & GL to all in CQWW!

				Bill  W4ZV

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