[TenTec] 516/Orion/"software defined"/etc.

[George, W5YR]

Duane, I still owe you a private response to your last email, but I just
couldn't resist jumping in here to refute the quoted statement below.
Actually, some of us *have* figured it out!   <:}

I would agree that "most" JA radios have employed DSP in that manner,
notably the Yaesu Mk V, but the Icom IC-756PRO and PRO II and now the new
IC-746PRO are built around a complete 36 KHz digital transceiver, just as
the Kachina 505DSP was built around a 40 KHz processing core. All signal
processing including frequency generation, modulation and demodulation,
AGC, noise blanking, CW keying, speech processing, filter generation,
notching, etc. are done digitally in that core. 

What is "tacked on" are the r-f amplifiers and up- and down-converters and
ADCs and DACs required to get the incoming analog r-f down to 36 KHz and
digitized into the processing core and then converted back to analog for
up-conversion of the transmitted signal to the final output frequency and
power level.

Hardly a proper description to say that it is a "traditional" radio with
some DSP stuffed in!   <:}

I am sure that we all are looking forward to seeing Doug Smith and company
carry forward what he started with the Kachina and produce an outstanding
DSP top-line radio. But, I think it is true that considering the tradeoffs
of cost and performance, most if not all of the Big Three in JA-land are
doing the same thing.

We have great things in store for us!

72/73/oo, George W5YR - the Yellow Rose of Texas         
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13qe   
Amateur Radio W5YR, in the 56th year and it just keeps getting better!
QRP-L 1373 NETXQRP 6 SOC 262 COG 8 FPQRP 404 TEN-X 11771
Icom IC-756PRO #02121  Kachina #91900556  IC-765 #02437

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Duane Grotophorst wrote:

>  The JA companies are still just
> building traditional radios with DSP stuffed in them
> vs. building DSP based RF/AF signal processing boxes
> that are configured to be a radio. It’s really too bad
> that such a large part of the Ham radio population
> hasn’t figured this out either.