[TenTec] Many Orions for sale

[Bob Henderson]

Grant Youngman wrote:

> All of the useful suggestions about sequencing and other ways to
>
>approach the functionality some of you can't live without have been 
>ignored -- at least by all of the loudest mouths, who don't seem to 
>want to hear anything but themselves and simply relish the 
>opportunity to toss one of several currently popular insults at anyone 
>who just doesn't see it their way.
>  
>

Grant

With respect, I think you miss the point entirely.  Work arounds may be 
possible and may be adopted by some but there is a question mark over 
whether they should, or need, be necessary.

You see, it has long been a de facto standard so far as amateur radio is 
concerned that a PTT line which floats on receive and is pulled down on 
transmit is provided.  I don't think manufacturers got together and 
agreed this, rather I think it's one of those things that just 
happened.  Yaesu, Kenwood and Icom all provide this as did Heath, 
Collins, KW and I imagine pretty much everyone else.

Whether standards emerge by default or design it doesn't really matter, 
folks come to rely upon them anyway, and so it is with this.  That is 
why all logging software I am aware of, whether contest oriented or 
otherwise, provides an output for PTT control.

Ten Tec for their own reasons have chosen not to adhere to this de facto 
standard, upon which many contesters have come to rely.  Competitive 
contest stations are inherently more complex than the average.  
Nevertheless, it is probably quite possible to re-engineer these 
stations to accomodate the abscence of PTT control on the  Orion.  
Having said that, I have doubts it will happen in too many places and 
that may well loose Ten Tec sales they would otherwise have. My limited 
experience so far, shows the Orion to be excellent in many ways, so that 
would be a great pity.

As I already said; Ten Tec for their own reasons have diverged from the 
de facto standard.  If it's straight forward for them to comply it would 
likely make eminent commercial sense to do so.  Avoidable but unavoided 
barriers to sale are a curse of good business.

Bob, 5B4AGN, P3F