Re: [TenTec] Should I buy an Orion now or wait

[Jerry Volpe <kg6tt@tomorrowsweb.com>]

Toby Pennington wrote:

> What exactly is "cw signal  timebase jitter"?   Any relation to dead spots
> or noise bursts?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bill Tippett" <btippett@alum.mit.edu>
> To: <tentec@contesting.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 5:38 PM
> Subject: [TenTec] Should I buy an Orion now or wait
>
>
>  
>
> > AB7YF wrote:
> >
> >     1) the DragonBall processor used by the Orion has been EOL'd
> > (discontinued) by Freescale/Motorola. Does this imply that TT will be
> > upgrading the Orion to another processor when their supply of
> > DragonBall's runs out? or does it mean that an Orion+ or Orion II is on
> > the horizon?
> >
> >     2) From what I've read about Orion it has the potential of being a
> > truly awesome rig, but given the somewhat unstable nature of it's
> > firmware etc. can it truly live up to it's potential in it's present
> > incarnation? or will a hardware upgrade(s) be necessary to fix all of
> > the little nits?
> >
> >         Harry, from what I understand of the objectives of
> > the forthcoming version 2.0 firmware upgrade, it should
> > address problems caused by internal communications between
> > the main CPU and the two DSP processors.  These communications
> > problems have apparently been the cause of instability in some
> > functions (random lockups, CW signal timebase jitter, etc) and
> > I doubt these problems were caused by an underpowered CPU.  I
> > have no idea about the support life of the DragonBall is but
> > it is likely years (maybe even decades) and not days or months.
> > End-of-Life happens all the time in industry and yet the world
> > still somehow manages to turn.
> >
> >         If you want a perfect rig, you will need to wait
> > until you go where George W5YR (SK) recently went. Orion
> > already IS an awesome rig, especially its strong-signal handling
> > as consistently measured by ARRL, RSGB, W8JI and Sherwood.
> >
> >                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > TenTec mailing list
> > TenTec@contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> >
> >    
>
> _______________________________________________
> TenTec mailing list
> TenTec@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
>
>
>  
Sometimes I think the first thing someone should do when they have that 
initial 'glimmer' of "maybe I should buy an Orion...." is to distance 
themselves as far as possible from this reflector until after they buy 
it and try it for the 30 day guarantee trial/return.... THEN maybe 
exchange notes with others on the Reflector but ONLY after reading 
through the archives.. The second thing I think they should do IS NOT 
TOUCH any of the programmable options for the first SIX months! Just 
leave it in its defaults. Just my tongue-in-cheek recommendation... well 
maybe more real than that.
73,
Jerry, KG6TT