I was over at Bill W3WH's house last night, which gave me my first hands-on
actual antenna chance to play with an Orion (wow!). I was struck, during
the course of operating and chatting, by the contrast in size between the
Orion and the Argonaut V that he had sitting next to it, which got me to
thinking...
Where do you think the future line of Ten-Tec rigs goes from here?
Here are some random thoughts... I'm curious as to what some of you think.
The Pegasus & The Jupiter: I suspect that, given how similar these two rigs
are, that when the next major upgrade comes, one will disappear. I'd
suspect that it might be the Pegasus. Haven't heard too much about it since
the Jupiter came out & took off, and while it is definitely a nice little
rig, I'd venture that most would prefer to have the front panel even if they
do use the rig(s) a lot via computer control. [And I still say that they
should have an Ethernet port for real remote control purposes, and I don't
mean on the other side of the shack, but I digress]
The Argonaut: I like this rig, I really do -- I'm very happy I talked Bill
into buying it for himself (now if I could just get him to buy one for me!
<g>). It is, arguably, the nicest commercial QRP rig on the market today --
with enough features to make it competitive with the imports, but not so
many as to overwhelm. I keep thinking that if it were only a 50-100 W rig,
it would be a nice little mobile unit too (no other changes, just 50-100 W
finals). Now I know some will argue that there's only a 3-6 dB
difference, and so forth, but I'd respond that since most HF mobile antennas
involve some performance compromise, you'd want the maximum practical output
to balance the antenna losses -- and I also learned during my last 10 meter
mobile stint that while 25 watts was good, 100 watts was a little better,
with the antenna I had at the time. Nevetheless, if the Pegasus were to go
away (as I noted above), I'd certainly encourage a "big brother" Argonaut V
intended for mobile use to take it's place (perhaps it can be the new
Argosy?). This would maintain the same number of HF rigs in the lineup
while also filling in a niche that Ten-Tec doesn't currently serve.
The Orion: Like I said, wow. Very nice rig, and even though you could
spend months with the manual learning all of it's ins & outs, very user
friendly, very intuitive, very slick. And yes, a color LCD screen would
have been nice, but in terms of performance (not packaging) I didn't notice
the lack of color after a few moments. I suspect the Orion will be around
for awhile, and outside of said color, I can't see too much room for
improvement -- but I'm sure something will come up <g>. [Well, there is
that pesky Ethernet port...]
The 6N2: Another nice little rig (W3HND has one) filling a nice little
niche. I hope Ten-Tec is doing well with it. One wonders if a future
upgrade, or an additional V/UHF could include 220 or 432, and I'm sure that
the guys in the factory have thought about it. That may well be market
driven as opposed to a technical issue -- is there enough of a market to
support said radio?
Will we ever see a Ten-Tec HT again? (I suspect not for awhile, considering
the costs involved in making them in today's marketplace -- and I'd hate to
see Ten-Tec OEM someone else's rig and put their name on it, that was the
beginning of the end for Drake) Will we ever see a Satellite transverter
again? (I suspect not, considering the AO-40 situation and the market for
such a rig -- without a fully functioning satellite, which sadly the damaged
AO-40 is not, this is definitely a narrow niche, not a mass, market)
What do you think I've overlooked? (And I've deliberately stuck to rigs,
not the linears, tuners, or other accessories)
73, ron wn3vaw
"I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's.
His hair was... perfect."
-- "Werewolves of London", Warron Zevon SK 8 Sept 2003
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