John,
I am a Life Member of the ARRL. Being such I can tell you that
after I read their review on the original Omni 6 where the complained
about the birdies present when they removed the antenna from the
receiver input, I put very little faith in their so called technical
reviews! Does anyone operate a radio that way? Certainly not, and design
engineers do not design their radios to meet specification, with the
'antenna disconnected'! Certainly a military or a commercial radio is
required to meet specs under no-load conditions, but then we do not pay
$20k to $50k for our amateur radios.
My opinion of my Omni and certainly my opinion of the Orion will
come from it's performance on my desk, and not from anyone's 'technical
review'. I agree that the ARRL's technical testing and reviews have
improved in quality over the past five years, but that's only after hams
and manufacturers have insisted that they do their published testing in
a more consistent and fair manner. Still, I distrust most of what I hear
from that organization.
Tom/W4BQF
Chester Alderman
calderman@cox.net
-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-admin@contesting.com [mailto:tentec-admin@contesting.com]
On Behalf Of John Rippey
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 3:16 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: [TenTec] I get nervous when . . .
It looks like the first Orions are just around the corner, and I get
nervous when I think that the rig's reputation will to a considerable
extent stand or fall on what the ARRL's lab reports. Since the report
will
be based on lab tests of a single early production unit, it is a dicey
(i.e., Las Vegas crapshoot) business for Ten-Tec. Recall that the QST
review of the OMNI VI Plus some years back had several nits to pick that
detracted substantially from the overall report on the rig. Those nits
clearly were the result of minor production glitches, not fundamental to
the design of the radio at all. Also, a lot will ride on who does the
QST
review. Will he be a top CW op, a digital mode enthusiast, or perhaps
worst
of all a casual SSB rag chewer? Dave Newkirk and Rus Healy (a CW maven),
to
name two eminently qualified folks, are no longer available. That's why
I
get nervous when . . .
73,
John, W3ULS
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