[TenTec] Product Reviews

[al_lorona at agilent.com]

In my third year of high school, I had a friend who passed U.S. History
class by only looking at the pictures and the captions in our textbook. 

That is kind of how I read the QST product reviews. The reviewer can
lie, but a phase noise plot cannot, unless the measurement was botched
or something.

And so I tried to present only facts in my original post, the one where
I listed observations about the two Japanese rigs. You guys are all
correct: we have to cut through all the hype and get to the essential
question, which is, "Is this rig any good?"

Forget for a moment what the reviewers said about their experience with
the radios in question, and look just at facts. Don't try to read into
their bias for or against anything.

Somebody said it is good to look at the expanded test reports, and that
is really true, because typically there are really minimal comments by
the testing technician in those reports. Just measurements. Maybe not
all of the measurements we would like to see, but there are plenty of
data there. Another beautiful aspect of this is that we have the same
data for every radio. So we can objectively compare Radio A and Radio B.
If the tests are performed the same way every time, we can say, "At a
certain offset from the carrier, Radio A has less phase noise than Radio
B."

All I was doing was looking, for example, at the CW waveform and
commenting on whether, objectively, it was a good or a bad picture. Not
all radios are going to be top-of-the-line performers, but if ARRL has
deemed the CW waveform as a test important enough to be performed on all
radios coming in through the door, then we ought to be able to judge the
quality of that radio's performance in that test. 

The great jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis said, "Technique is like a
sentry that lets you in the door, but it won't take you all the way."
Still, without basic technique, like being able to play in all 12
scales, you can't really be called a great musician. So, what I was
saying is that many, many rigs, from many manufacturers, are far from
great. They don't have the technique to be great. They have to go back
and practice. Sometimes I get the feeling that there is an undercurrent
of reverse discrimination against Ten Tec rigs, not only on this
reflector, but all over the ham world: among contesters and big guns and
others. See, there are folks who write off a Ten Tec rig for the oddest
reasons-- you all know where I stand on this-- well, I write off many
rigs as well because they don't have basic technique. They haven't
gotten through my 'door' yet. Some have, but many have not. That's my
point.

If Ham X is going to write off a Ten Tec because it is 30 Hz off
frequency, then I am justified in writing off a Brand Kensucom for
spewing IMD and key clicks all over the band. That is all.

Regards,

W6LX

P.S. By the way, can you imagine if Ten Tec shipped a rig with "160
through 6 meters" on the box and the manuals, when the rig really only
covered from 160 through 10? I'm certain that there would be a riot on
this reflector. Yet, it does not seem to bother hams in the least when
Kensucom does it.