[TenTec] Argo V

[n4lq@iglou.com]

A friend of mine, W4JKL near Atlanta just got his new Argo V. Last night 
we ran some test to check the cw note. John was running 10 watts into his 
G5RV and for a while was S9 here in Louisville. The band was a bit noisey 
but I was able to listen closely to his carrier and I could hear no 
defects. No phase noise, hiss or rasp. I had him set his break-in delay 
to minimum, QSK, and key dits at 25 wpm. I heard no microchirp or clicks 
and there was no truncation of characters, in fact, it sounded great. As 
a matter of fact it sounded better than many rigs costing 5 times more. 
Keep in mind that his signal wasn't super strong so I was unable to do a 
complete check for clicks.
John isn't accustomed to using QSK and his top cw speed seems to be 
around 15 wpm therefore, he was instantly turned off at what he heard 
while transmitting. He complained about the horrible racket and clicking 
sound. I really think it was just some band noise he heard between his 
characters not unwanted clicks and thumps in the QSK....hopefully. I 
cannot verify this. My next QSO was with K2ZF who was running his new IC-
756PROII. Nice keying but when switching to QSK he lost 50% of his 
weighting. The external keyer took care of this DEFECT. 
For receiving, I happened to be using my TS-930s which I consider to be 
the ultimate in smooth QSK. It's so smooth that when transmitting, one 
could mistake his own sidetone for another station and answer his own CQ.
Happens all the time! 73 QRZ?

Steve N4LQ