[TenTec] Sweep & some 160m observations

[Marty Ray]

I almost always have the sweep turned on...but I only really use it 
when the band is sparsely populated. Why, you ask, do I leave it turned 
on if I don't use it much of the time? I can't stand that huge blank 
area of the display. I know, that sounds really stupid, but it's true. 
When I am tuning the bands, and I look at that vacant real estate, it 
is actually distracting to me. I keep thinking I am missing some 
functionality or something. Perhaps it is just a subconscious hang-up, 
but it does really bug me.

I would be really happy if TT could throw something in there when the 
sweep is off (not that I am unhappy - see 160m report below). Perhaps 
they could use that area to display such things as frequently used menu 
data, like AGC settings. Perhaps they could put a clock display there. 
It just seems such a waste to have that area blank. Maybe this could be 
part of the "I want knobs to directly access AGC functions" solution...

160M report: I was having trouble getting to sleep last night and I 
checked 160 meters. Wow. It was hopping. But, I found that I had an 
unusually high QRN level. Someone using a bad electric blanket or 
something, but holy cow, it was bad. Normally, with my past rigs, I 
would have just shut the rig off and went back to bed. Now things are 
different. With the arsenal of weapons in the Orion, I was able to 
eliminate the noise and work a few new ones! And this was on a band 
filled with huge signals. Normally you can't use a noise blanker with 
that much noise and large nearby signals. All I had to do was tighten 
up the roofing filters and/or use a combination of the DSP NB and NR 
and I was in business!

Kudos to TT.

Regards,

Marty Ray, N9SE

On Feb 17, 2004, at 12:08 PM, Bill Tippett wrote:

>         In a contest, Sweep is useless since it shows a band is filled 
> with
> signals...but I already knew that!  When DX conditions are really good,
> it is useless for similar reasons, you need to actually identify the DX
> stations to know which one you might need.  In a split DX pileup, it is
> not as effective as actually locating the station the DX is working 
> with
> the Sub Receiver.