"PULL!" [BANG]
"Yeah, I've heard that Ten-Tec rigs are great on CW, but on SSB?......"
I have heard this more times than than I could ever possibly remember.
For me it began in 1977 when I bought my Triton IV (540). Even then the
questions from my 'friends' were "and what about SSB?" So ever since I
have thought about this issue and looked for ways to appropriately
address it.
I have owned and used: Triton IV, Omni-C, Jupiter, Paragon, Corsair II,
Scout, 526, and an Omni-VI+. I have always operated both CW and Phone.
And I have always received vast numbers of unsolicited 'excellent audio'
reports for hams who had no idea what rig I was using up to that point.
Now most of my operating was with marginal antennas and 100 watts or
less so those favorable reports were probably due to communication
clarity rather than my being the biggest signal. What more can you ask for?
1. Frankly, I believe that these CW versus SSB rumors generated because
there wasn't a lot of evidence of Ten-Tec's on the phone bands in the
70's and early 80's... possibly because the majority of the then Ten-Tec
owners appeared to be hams with a passion for CW. Of course that would
be true as in those years the other rigs were seriously lacking in that
mode in comparison. So the Ten-Tec rigs were out there but many of the
mics were gathering dust. But that absence on the Phone bands was not
due to poor SSB performance, just choice of the owners.
2. It has been my impression that Ten-Tec engineering concentrated on
conservative engineering approaches when deciding what 'features' to put
in a design, but maximized the performance of that they included. I saw
it as a quantity versus quality type of thing. . I suppose the 'extras'
followed more slowly when compared to the mass marketed Japanese
rigs.... probably due to marketing pressure. Apply the Ten-Tec approach
to SSB and you will see that the basic 'great' performance was always
there but the extras like VOX, Pass Band Tuning, speech processing,
transmit bandwidth tailoring, optional wider receive bandwidth, etc.
appeared in Ten-Tec rigs more slowly. But I have to ask are these extras
actually essential to have a quality signal on the phone bands? Perhaps
if your need is 'Enhanced Sideband' but for general chatting, chasing DX
or even contesting I personally don't think so. Many hams thought they
had to have the extras (the power of advertising) therefore they went to
the rigs that sported the additional buttons and knobs (have you looked
at the front panel of the Orion II and compared it to the IC-78000 or
the FTdx9000D? Do all those buttons and knobs create a superior 'on the
air' signal? Or let you pull in the difficult ones better?
Back to the original question: Omni CW vs SSB? In my opinion.... no
compromise. CW.... even if your Ten-Tec is 25 years old or more you have
what other manufactures attempt to compare to. Regarding SSB
performance.... clean audio in and out! Well remember to consider your
choice in microphone. To get the best sound you might consider picking a
mic that is right for your voice that you will be heard the way you want
to be heard (a concept well known in the broadcast industry).
73,
Jerry, KG6TT
Fairfield, CA
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