[TenTec] Quietness/Apparent Sensitivity

[AC5E at aol.com]

Let me add a bit to Jim's comments. We have "rig shootouts," where someone 
brings their  "latest and greatest rig on the market"  to put it up against 
the reigning "king of the hill."  After all, specs are mighty interesting in 
the lab. But you can't operate a spec sheet. 

And in particular, the spec sheet is not that informative when you are trying 
to operate three rigs into three antennas on a 2 acre  lot. Even the best 
bandpass filters won't let you operate some rigs under those conditions. At 
least not without severely reducing power output.  I have not tried the Orion 
under those circumstances - but I may take mine to Field Day and will be able 
to report on transmit phase noise if I do. 

On the recieve side, we have had several  FT-1000's of various varieties 
stacked up against one of my Omni VI's, and it's always been quite easy to 
find fairly easy to copy stations buried in noise the '1000 could do nothing 
with.  In fact, the ONLY ham reciever that so far has exceeded the 
performance of the VI+ has been the Orion. 

Of course, I do have neighbors in this subdivision, and lots and lots of man 
made noise.  But during the shootouts we have found some rigs contribute so 
much internally generated noise my ambient noise is almost unnoticable. Thank 
goodness for Ten Tec!  

73  Pete Allen  AC5E