Well everyone's prespective is different. Yes, the TT equipment in the very
early days looked kind of goofy from a cabinet standpoint. Yes, the Scout was
weird with the plug in modules. I have owned all sorts of rice boxes and TT
radio and I can't agree with you on every point.
First, not all the Japanese radios are high quality. In fact, some of them are
very "cheap" in construction. The Japanese have started making their radios
some darn complicated to use, that my last purchase again went to TT with the
Jupiter. Who wants to constantly have to reach for the manual to learn how to
operate a particular feature on the radio? In addition, they keep shrinking
the radios so the buttons are too close and too small. Yes, the smallness is
fine for mobile radios, but I want my home rig to be nicely layed out, not
cramped and crammed.
All this time, TT has improved the quality of the cabinet and construction and
produced some very fine radios. My first exposure to TT was with a Triton IV
that a buddy lent me for a year while he was in Korea with the Army. That
radio put any Japanese rig to shame. My wife even commented that the audio
from that receiver sounded great (she has never made such a comment since). In
the early 1990's I bought my first TT rig, a Paragon II. I liked that radio
very much, worked very well, easy to use and a nice receiver. Then I upgraded
to an Omni VI+. That receiver was wonderful and again, easy to use. With two
daughters in college and the oldest one in a contest with me to see if she can
spend money faster than I can make it (she's winning by the way), I sold the
Omni 6+. Six months later having missed my Omni, I bought a Jupiter. I was
absolutely surprised at how wonderful the receiver is on this radio. Easy to
use, not micronized like the typical rice box today and I didn't have to attend
the university to learn how to operate it. And the DSP, it's is incredible.
The quality of construction is great.
So TT has come a LONG way and in my mind now vastly surpasses the Japanese rigs
for what I want. Reasonable size, full featured, and easy to operate without
having my head in the manual for hours on end.
As a last note, I don't think TT will ever abandon the CW buffs, but the crowd
is moving to SSB and Digital and CW is in a very slow decline. They have to
concentrate where the market is going, and the market is moving to digital (yes
I know CW is the first digital mode) and voice and maybe in the near future,
digital voice.
Note to TenTec - Since I said all these nice things, can I please buy the first
516 that comes off the line? I meant every word.
Thanks,
Duffy
http://www.wb8nut.com
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