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Re: [Orion] Bugs and Firmware Suggestions for Orion

To: "James C. Garland" <4cx250b@muohio.edu>
Subject: Re: [Orion] Bugs and Firmware Suggestions for Orion
From: Joe Giacobello <k2xx@swva.net>
Reply-to: k2xx@swva.net
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2005 09:57:32 -0500
List-post: <mailto:orion@contesting.com>
James, a lot of the issues you raised are valid. It's my opinion that the operator-radio control interface is a major shortcoming of the Orion. Nevertheless, N4PY's software does streamline many of the improvements that you suggested.

73, Joe

James C. Garland wrote:

Hi Gang,
I've been using my Orion over the weekend and noticed a couple of bugs. Also, I have a few firmware suggestions that would make the rig more user friendly.


A. Bugs:
1. Pressing and holding the PWR button for a few seconds causes the s-meter to lock at 100.
2. Pressing the "MAIN RX" button to expand the step size has no effect when the step size is 100 kHz.
3. AM tuning in the subreceiver is always 2.5 kHz, no matter what step size is selected.


B. Suggestions for Firmware revisions.

1. Activating NR, NB, or AN now requires two button pushes. The first highlights the selected button, and the second changes the button's state (e.g., from OFF to ON). It would be better to combine these functions, so that one button push highlights the button and also changes its state. This is the way the Notch button currently works.

2. Mode selection on the Orion is inconvenient, because to change modes requires two button pushes. First, the MODE button is pressed to select the Mode menu. Then another button is pushed (e.g. USB) to select the mode. After pressing the second button, the radio reverts to the menu display.
A better idea, in my opinion, is to use the Mode button to toggle the mode menu on and off. As long as the mode menu is on, the user can then select modes repeatedly by just pushing the desired button. The mode menu would stay active until the mode button was pushed a second time to turn it off. While active, modes could also be selected by turning the MULTI control.


3. The STEP choices are not optimal, because the gap between 10Hz and 100Hz is too great. The 10Hz setting is too slow for SSB and the 100Hz setting is too fast for SSB. I'd reccommend a step sequence that went 1-10-50-100-1K-10K-100K

4. When changing modes, the AGC setting doesn't change. This is inconvenient, because one nearly always uses different AGC settings for CW and SSB. It would be desirable for a mode change to also change the AGC to whatever setting was previously used in the newly selected mode.

5. The pushbuttons for audio mute are still too sensitive to small rotations. It's hard to mute the receiver and subreceiver, because one's finger tends to turn the knob a tiny bit. It would be better to disable the feature that automatically unmutes the receiver when the knob is turned. Then unmuting would require a button push.

6. The PWR button is used to set output power, and turns from 1 to 100. I would recommed changing it so it turns from 0 to 100. Then one could disable the transmitter by just turning the power to zero, instead of having to go into a menu to do so.

7. To transmit a carrier of a particular power, one now has to push the TUNE button, followed by the POWER button. It would be easier if one could just toggle a carrier on and off by pushing and holding the POWER button for 1/2 sec. The radio would then transmit a carrier at whatever power the POWER button was set to.

8. The S-TONE button should have a push-and-hold feature for toggling the sidetone on and off.

9. (this is an old request). PLEASE change the taper on the volume controls to an audio taper, so that one doesn't have to keep cranking the knob to turn the volume down.

I'd appreciate any thoughts the group might have on these suggestions.

73,
Jim Garland W8ZR


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