[TenTec] Dayton-one more view

[randas at mindspring.com]

Hello my friends

Over all I had a great time at Dayton. That being said I do have a few comments in reference to Ten Tecs new offerings. My first impression of the new Orion was "man, this thing is big". Much larger in size than I had envisioned. I didn't get the "this looks cheap" impression at all. As I sit here typing, my Del monitor has the same mat black finish others have said they didn't care for. To me it's not an issue. I questioned Scott about the dsp function and was informed that both dsp processors were active all the time, I had thought one might be dedicated to the subreceiver which is not the case. Like many others who have commented about the display screen I was not impressed. It looked like 15 year old technology. I think TT really missed the boat on this feature. They will sale many Orion's due to the receiver specs and unique features, but I feel those numbers will be far out weighed  with the number of radios not sold due to the mono screen. They had a chance to sweep the market with this rig, they could of converted all the high end jap rig users to TT gear. Especially now a days, I think virtually all hams were looking for a good radio/reason to buy American. A few more bucks invested in the display would have really set the new standard in ham radio for years to come. Maybe it's still not too late...we'll see.

I was really looking forward to checking out the new qrp rig. The rig looked like it would be fun, but again I feel they could of doubled future sales by not tacking on that extra 200 bucks. The look and feel of the rig made it seem a bit cheap. At $800 new I will wait for the used market to develop. 

For what it's worth
Tim  KØFL


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