[TenTec] TT Orion: Also SEMI-BK-IN possible ?

[Rick Westerman]

<Snip>

At the end of the day...they are making far too much of the Orion
PTT line
issue when the proper place for the PTT contest card interconnect
is on the
amp's PTT key line between the Orion and a mechanically-switched
amplifier.

-Paul, W9AC


 Paul, you already convinced me - I fully agree, but you still
fail to pick up on one point that is important to contesters.
When we go off to participate in a multi-op contest, we are one
of many and if our equipment doesn't seamlessly integrate, it
doesn't get used.  We Ten-Tec guys can jump up and down and
scream, but we won't convince the others "on the fly" to accept
our non-standard connectivity.
Imagine my frustration owning an Omni V / VI / VI+ and being
told, "we don't want it - it's weird".
In my opinion it was better than any other rig they had, but they
perceived it to be too different and thought it might confuse
some ops.  Besides, they blew out the linear keying transistor
once, years ago when connecting it to a Kenwood TL-922 (which
keys about -120v) and now they think its incompatible.  The
internal relay was switched off by software.  I didn't know the
922 had such an old-fashion keying circuitry; otherwise I would
have switched the Omni's relay on.
Now you can say or think whatever you want about that group of
people, but they currently hold the all-time world record in both
CW and SSB for CQ WW DX.
Right now I have them "considering" to switch their standard rig
from Kenwood TS-850 to ORION.  I will be giving a presentation on
the ORION to them at our annual meeting next month.  Should I
succeed in convincing them of the virtues of the ORION, Ten-Tec
can expect about 50 orders from our club within a year.  If they
happen to be monitoring this current thread - I just might fail.
If we were talking computers, we would be discussing
"Proprietary" vs. "Open Systems" on this thread.  There's no
question about which is better, but if it isn't standard, it's
undesirable.
As an ex-DEC veteran, I can assure you that proprietary is the
wrong way to go.
73
Rick