[TenTec] Orion Aesthetics..Another point of View

[WA3FIY]

On 10 Mar 2002 at 19:58, Tom Rauch wrote:
[snip]
> 
> What I intended to say was the K2 is not a sophisticated design at
> all. It uses 1980's or earlier technology in the mixer and garden
> variety single-ended 2N5109 RF and post-mixer amplifiers, yet it still
> is better at close-spaced performance than virtually all other radios!
> 
One of the areas in which the K2 does well according to test 
reports is phase noise.  I find it interesting that the oscillator 
system used in the K2 is in certain ways similar to that found in 
the  late 1970's Icom 701, I believe the first fully synthesized 
amateur HF transceiver.  It uses relatively large steps in the PLL 
and then steps a voltage tuned crystal oscillator for the fine 
steps.  

Also thinking about the two general purpose VFO's in the 
ORION.  It looks like one can assign either of them to either or 
both receivers and to the transmitter.  This is a flexible system 
as compared to having a single VFO that must be shifted 
between RX and TX.  BUT this is not new either.  Anyone 
remember the hallicrafters FPM-200 [and I think the 
COSMOPHONE] transceiver which had two independent VFO's 
that could be assigned to either RX or TX functions?   Seems 
the more things change, the more they stay the same.   :-)

I'd be willing to bet though that the ORION performance will 
solidly whoop the FPM-200 and Cosmophone and any other rig on 
the market, past or present.   :-)    Although the FPM-200 was 
WAY ahead of it's time, it did not perform as well as some of 
the other radios of the day and it was way over priced for the 
level of performance it provided.   Looks to me like Ten Tec has 
nicely addressed both of those issues with a rig that will out 
perform anything else on the marked and do it for a very 
reasonable price.  Can hardly wait to get my hands on one.

-Lee-