Hi Rick,
Actually, I agree. Back when I came to Pittsburgh to help open & work at an
Amateur Radio store, we were a Ten Tec dealer (yes, there were once such
things) and early on had the Argosy and the Argonaut 515 both on the shelf.
Both were excellent rigs for what had been intended, but to be honest, neither
was perfect. An RF Gain would have served the Argosy well. (So would 12 and
17 meters) but let's also remember that the rig was intended to be sold for
under US$500 retail at the time; MSRP was $499. So some decisions were clearly
made to keep the costs down. (I'm not saying I agree with the choices, just
that they existed)
I can tell you that when it came to performance, you could put a TS-430S side
by side with an Argosy, on the same antenna with a switch. The Argosy heard
signals the 430 did not. Even with its faults. On transmit, assuming you
didn't tell the other station which rig was which, the Argosy always got better
audio reports, and few if any noticed the difference between the 430 at 100
Watts and the Argosy at 50 Watts on their S meter.
Now I'm sure that some will want to argue the point with me... but I'm the one
who had both rigs on the "test the rig" bench (actually, a hollow wood door on
saw-horse like wooden legs... I ought to know, I built it) and helped potential
buyers who sat down to listen or whatever. So I know.
...and 4 times out of 5, if someone was going to actually BUY the rig that day,
they bought the 430 over the Argosy. Why? Because it had 100 W out, 12, 17,
and 160 meters, and bells & whistles that the Argosy did not have. Even though
most would admit that in terms of the pure performance, the Argosy was the
better rig hands down. And that 1 out of 5 who did buy the Argosy tended to be
someone who primarily operated CW. Go figure.
(I should add that I learned later that half the people who decided on one rig
over the other bought it... via an 800 number from a big dealer like HRO, EGE
or AES who could undercut us on price. And paid more in shipping than they
would have in sales tax, and paid full price for the power supply, filters, and
other sundries. But they saved $20 on the rig itself! Which is why the little
mom-and-pop stores had and have trouble surviving, but that's another story)
Ahem.
When the 525D came out, I was a little disappointed in the display itself, and
the extra power consumption didn't help. There was also something "magic"
about the $499 MSRP for the Argosy that disappeared when the 525D was MSRP at
$529. You'd think $30 wouldn't make that much of a difference at the time, but
it did.
In any event, I would love to have one, one day. And one day, maybe I will.
But right now, I have something else in the pipeline, so the shekels towards an
Argosy will just have to wait.
HNY to you as well
73, ron w3wn
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Rick@dj0ip.de
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 4:10 AM
To: 'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment'
Subject: Re: [TenTec] century 22
Hi Ron
HNY (in advance).
I too liked the Argosy (analog - not digital).
But to be honest, my Argonaut 509 into which I addad a 9 MHz CW filter and
mounted its AF filter inside instread of outside, OUT-PERFORMED the Argosy on
receive on the low bands.
There were two reasons for that:
1) The Argosy did not have that lovely "elevator" preselector that the two
Argonauts had, and
2) The Argosy did not have an RF gain.
I solved that problem by adding a switchable RF Attenuator to it and used my
tiny but super-good home-brew tunable 40m preselector with it.
People may wonder why I did not like the "D" version.
Simple: Battery drain. Most of my portable operation was off of a motorcycle
battery.
73,
Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ron Notarius
W3WN
Sent: 30 December 2017 00:35
To: 'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment' <tentec@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] century 22
Really?
I always thought the C22 was an Argosy without the 50 W "brick" (since it uses
the Argosy case and front panel). Never appealed to me, because I'd rather
have an Argosy (525 or 525D), given the choice, so I never looked into it any
further.
Might explain why the C22 wasn't that popular.
73
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Dukes HiFi
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:07 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Cc: w2iy@verizon.net
Subject: Re: [TenTec] century 22
Whoda thunk???
The C21 was a superheterodyne with a 5.0 to 5.5 MHz wide IF stage, fed by the
RF input and the crystal oscillator for each band, and a product detector on
the AF board that uses the VFO as the “BFO” to carry out product detection. It
is NOT direct conversion.
I had always assumed that the C22 was a repackaged C21 with digital display.
WRONG!
It is indeed a direct conversion radio. It premixes the PTO with the crystal
oscillator for each band and shoots the result (which is right on the revive
and transmit frequency) right into a mixer which direct detects signals, then
on to the AF stage! What a downgrade compared with the C21!
WHAT A DOWNGRADE TT made to produce the C22!
If you have a choice, get a C21!
Gary
W0DVN
> On Dec 29, 2017, at 3:04 PM, Winston <jones_winston@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> Good fun cw rig.
> Winston K4CWQ
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Dec 29, 2017, at 2:56 PM, Dr Richard San Antonio <K1MD@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> Buy it....lots of fun but don't sell your Omni6+!
>>
>> Richard K1MD
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
>> Michael Tortorella
>> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 11:42 AM
>> To: tentec@contesting.com
>> Subject: [TenTec] century 22
>>
>> Hi all, I am contemplating purchase of a Century 22 and would like to
>> hear what people on the list think of that rig.
>>
>> Thanks and 73
>>
>> Mike W2IY
>>
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