[TenTec] KB7OEX: TenTec Blinders

[duffyb01@fuse.net]

Well everyone's prespective is different.  Yes, the TT equipment in the very early days looked kind of goofy from a cabinet standpoint.  Yes, the Scout was weird with the plug in modules.  I have owned all sorts of rice boxes and TT radio and I can't agree with you on every point.

First, not all the Japanese radios are high quality.  In fact, some of them are very "cheap" in construction.  The Japanese have started making their radios some darn complicated to use, that my last purchase again went to TT with the Jupiter.  Who wants to constantly have to reach for the manual to learn how to operate a particular feature on the radio?  In addition, they keep shrinking the radios so the buttons are too close and too small.  Yes, the smallness is fine for mobile radios, but I want my home rig to be nicely layed out, not cramped and crammed.

All this time, TT has improved the quality of the cabinet and construction and produced some very fine radios.  My first exposure to TT was with a Triton IV that a buddy lent me for a year while he was in Korea with the Army.  That radio put any Japanese rig to shame.  My wife even commented that the audio from that receiver sounded great (she has never made such a comment since).  In the early 1990's I bought my first TT rig, a Paragon II.  I liked that radio very much, worked very well, easy to use and a nice receiver.  Then I upgraded to an Omni VI+.  That receiver was wonderful and again, easy to use.  With two daughters in college and the oldest one in a contest with me to see if she can spend money faster than I can make it (she's winning by the way), I sold the Omni 6+.  Six months later having missed my Omni, I bought a Jupiter.  I was absolutely surprised at how wonderful the receiver is on this radio.  Easy to use, not micronized like the typical rice box today and I didn't have to attend the university to learn how to operate it.  And the DSP, it's is incredible.  The quality of construction is great.

So TT has come a LONG way and in my mind now vastly surpasses the Japanese rigs for what I want.  Reasonable size, full featured, and easy to operate without having my head in the manual for hours on end.

As a last note, I don't think TT will ever abandon the CW buffs, but the crowd is moving to SSB and Digital and CW is in a very slow decline.  They have to concentrate where the market is going, and the market is moving to digital (yes I know CW is the first digital mode) and voice and maybe in the near future, digital voice.

Note to TenTec - Since I said all these nice things, can I please buy the first 516 that comes off the line?  I meant every word.

Thanks,

Duffy 
http://www.wb8nut.com