Interesting but from the way things usually work in this world, I rather
suspect the new offerings by Icom and Vertex will be incrementally better than
anything they have had in the past. Incrementally better because the same
designers with the same habits will build much the same thing they have been
building - but "better" because they have fewer price constraints. And possibly
devices with improved performance as well. Of course, how their finished
product plays in the real world remains to be seen.
But one thing the new tranceivers do quite well is set a new high end
tranceiver price benchmark. By rule of thumb, 2/3rds of the street price of the
most expensive item of its class defines high end. Call that $8,000 for ham
rigs at the moment.
Also by rule of thumb 25 percent of the street price of that same highest price
item sets the top of the "low end." Call that $3,000 for the moment.
Everything in between is "mid priced." By that standard, the Orion is just
above the bottom of the mid range of tranceiver prices. And that gives Ten
Tec's rig designers a LOT more leeway to build a more expensive second
generation rig that's closer to that long sought ultimate performance level.
Defining that ultimate performance level may be is something else. It's
relatively easy to measure benchmark performance specs with wide frequency
spacings. But things get exponentially more difficult as spacings decrease.
Everything considered, I rather suspect one should expect a plus or minus 3 dB
margin at 2500 hz, and a 6 dB margin for error at or below 1 kHz.
And that means a 90 dB measurement from lab one and an 93 dB measurement from
lab two is not a cause for alarm. It is rather a cause to congratulate all
parties, the labs that that two organizations can measure different samples of
the same product with such close agreement, and the manufacturer because his
products have remarkably uniform performance.
73 Pete Allen AC5E
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