OK, I'll chime in here as I'm waiting to head off to an all afternoon
bluegrass jam! Yay! My first Ten-Tec was an Omni VI+, and I know I've told
the story here before. I had just started Dxing in the previous 5 years,
and had used first a Kenwood TS-440, and had moved up to an ICOM 765. The
ICOM had horrible IF-chain sizzle that just wore me out when doing long
stints at the rig, so I had invested in several audio DSP units which really
helped out a lot. I did the pin diode mod described by Ulrich Rohde on QST
articles, and found that something (phase noise?) from nearby strong signals
during contests made it difficult to hear. Long story short, I heard about
TT's great performance in similar situations, and asked a local ham with an
Omni VI if I might try his out for a little while at his shack. I was very
impressed with the receiver's smooth, quiet, and ear-friendly sound. I
purchased an Omni VI+ from TT, and the next contest I was in was the proof
that was in the pudding. I was tuning through two US CW mega-contest
stations which would have wiped out 3-5 kHz of space, and when I got in
between them, there was a puny signal calling CQ DX and no one replying. I
called them once and netted Lord Howe Island. It blew me away. After that,
doing S&P in a contest was a lot of fun. The Omni VI+ got me most of the
way to 7BDXCC and 317 countries confirmed with only a vertical and a G5RV
Jr. because I could hear stuff. I upgraded to an Orion, and have had that
since along with two TT amps (Centaur, and Centurion) followed by an Alpha
99 and all matched to the antenna system through a TT 238B tuner.
Happy July 4th to everyone. Let's remember what that was all about!
73, Duane
Duane Calvin, AC5AA
Austin, Texas
www.ac5aa.com
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