Greg and Mark,
Quite right, the Paragon I 585 has a rather clunky, and slow (1200 Baud)
interface. There is no handshaking with the RS232 interface with the
Standard Firmware but the updated firmware by Jack Geihl, WB8BFS commonly
known as "The Geihl Chip" returns an ASCII A after each query to the rig. I
use Ten Tec standards firmware. Win-EQF (http://www.eqf-software.com) does
have a logging product that interfaces quite nicely with the Paragon I. I
use it for logging and it works nicely, though does not do all the fancy
stuff that that a more modern rig will do from it's computer control. It
gets the Frequency and Mode loaded automatically into the log, and that is
what I was looking for! Works great with hunt and pounce in a contest, until
the pileup finds me!
Regards,
George V73GT
**************original message*************
From: Greg Hodsdon [mailto:k7kj@arrl.net]
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 5:29 PM
To: Mark Rauchfuss
Subject: Re: [TenTec] TenTec Manuals For Sale
Mark:
I never purchased the Paragon II. TT sent out early release
notices (remember..this was before the internet!) to all
Paragon owners announcing the new rig, however, at the
time I didn't think it was worth upgrading.
My impression is that the basic receive performance was
identical. The major differences was the user interface (the
front panel interface) and the computer RS232 interface.
The computer interface was the same as the just prior released
Omni VI and emulated the IC735. As I mentioned in my earlier
email to you, the Paragon 585 had a very early and clumsy
computer hand shaking protocol. This was TT's first ever
production computer interface and was before there were generally
accepted standards within the industry. Don't expect your Paragon
to talk to most any of the standard software packages on the market.
The user interface was greatly improved on the Paragon by Jack Geihl.
He offered an after market chip upgrade for $50 that was a BIG
improvement on the stock Paragon. It was a very popular upgrade and
you might check to see if your prospective purchase has this upgrade.
I'm not sure if the upgrade is still available.
The Paragon II also offered AM transmit.
Otherwise, the Paragon's basic receive and transmit performace was
similar
to the "II".
73 de Greg, K7KJ
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