[TenTec] Error in Ten-Tec Orion (565) Review?

[Ulrich Hilsinger]

Good morning and a happy new year 2004 all around,


"John Stensby (EE)" wrote:

 > For Fig. A, top trace, the caption states that a "key down" transmit
 > condition corresponds to a low voltage.  On the top trace of Fig. A,
 > the
 > waveform starts out (left side of plot) low (i.e., "key down"), and
 > the RF
 > output envelope starts (approximately) 27ms or so later.  Is this
 > correct?

It's exaclty what you need for safe QSK operations. As far as I 
understood, the ORION has a fixed CW delay of 20 ms. Those 20ms are 
intended to prevent amplifiers from hot switching (as long as their PTT 
delay is smaller than 20 ms, which should be normal for a nowaday's 
amplifier.).
Compare it with other equipments, you have the same behaviour there, 
too, perhaps not with that delay but with a lower one, but if you 
compare the keying waveforms you see a delay too (with the only big 
difference that the ORION obviously has a much better spectral purity).
What I could imagine some people wish is to have this delay as a setup 
value which can be higher than 20 ms, as it would make it easier to use 
very slow, sequenced setups, as it could be used for VHF weak signal 
work in combination with, f.ex., a chain of transverter, driver 
amplifier, final amplifier and preamplifier. But with external keying of 
those external components, it's not that important.. Other rigs don't 
have this feature too..



73,
Ulrich DH0GHU