[TenTec] The Last Radios

[Bruce Hanratty]

AL_LORONA@HP-USA-om33.om.hp.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      Hi, Everybody,
> 
> 
>      Reading about the various fixes that Ten Tec owners apply to their
>      radios always gets me thinking: The current Ten Tec rigs in
>      production-- which would include the Scout, Omni VI+, and kits-- may
>      be the last radios which are user-serviceable. That is, we are moving
>      into an era where transceivers, either because of surface mount
>      construction or because of the increasing role of software, or due to
>      other reasons, may no longer lend themselves to the kind of
>      troubleshooting, repair, modification, experimentation, and alignment
>      that so many of us value and enjoy.
> 
>      Evidence: The top-of-the-line Kenwood transceiver belonging to a
>      friend of mine developed VCO problems within a month of his buying it.
>      To extract and repair the board, which was loaded with nothing but
>      tiny, unmarked surface mount devices, took him weeks to do. (Kenwood
>      would not replace it under warranty, but that's another story.) It's a
>      good thing that my friend is an electronics engineer with 20 years of
>      experience building satellites at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and felt
>      confident enough to tackle the job, isn't it?
> 
>      Evidence: I just read a newsgroup message from a ham whose Icom IC-730
>      went on the fritz. He was soliciting help from other hams. The
>      shocking answer was that the internal battery went dead, which sounds
>      like it would be an easy fix, except that the rig's firmware was
>      stored in *volatile* RAM which was lost forever with the battery
>      failure! I guess Icom figured no one would still be using their
>      IC-730s in the late 1990's; the "throw-away" rig concept. This poor
>      guy is hosed if he can't find a way to re-load the program into his
>      few-year-old transceiver.
> 
>      Evidence: How many mods for the Kachina/Pegasus do you think we are
>      likely to see in the next few years? How much experimentation with
>      filtering, keying, front end, audio, aftermarket components, etc., so
>      much of which you see on this reflector? Will all of the modification
>      involve software only? (Way cool, how did you get the S-meter on the
>      lower left of your front panel? Oh, I just wrote, compiled, and linked
>      a new GUI...)
> 
>      Hang on to those Omnis, everybody, we may be witnessing the final
>      phase of a fix-it-with-a-paper-clip-and-chewing-gum approach to
>      amateur radio which has proved so rewarding for so many of us.
> 
>      What say you?
> 
> 
> 
>      Al W6LX
> 
> 
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Al,
 
 I could not agree with you more. I just got rid of my Kenwood TS-440S
so that I could purchase Ten Tec. I found a nice Omni-V and grabbed it
up. I haven't been able to use it much yet, but I am looking forward to
getting some use out of it this fall and winter.

73,
Bruce N0XNH

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