[TenTec] In re color displays, etc.

[John Rippey]

Believe it or not, folks, looks are important--in cars, boats and radios 
hams buy. The authority for this statement is not me but none other than 
Scott Robbins, who mentioned in an e-mail to me many moons ago that Ten-Tec 
is well aware that to reach a wider ham market beyond its core constituency 
the radios it produces have to look good (what that means for us hams is a 
question for Scott to deconstruct, not me).

In my book, the Argonaut V is a really good looking radio, the best from a 
design standpoint in my shack. I liked the Argosy also. The OMNI VI I own 
is so-so. Don't know about the Jupiter or Orion, although a major effort 
obviously has been made to make them appealing. When you look at the ad 
photos for the Mark V series, the radios look like gangbusters. But they do 
not play as well as they look, IMHO. Yet Yaesu has sold tens of thousands 
of the the MP line. I liked the looks and ergonomics of an FT-920 I owned, 
but it didn't hear very well. And I've heard a number of hams on the air 
speak glowingly of the multi-color display of their PROs. (The PROs 
obviously are also very good radios.)

So, yes, performance is important but, for hams anyway, it may not be not 
decisive.

73,
John, W3ULS