[TenTec] Orion in SO2R

[Bob Henderson]

The following posting was made earlier to the Contesting reflector.  It 
sets out my delights and concerns, 10 days after taking delivery of my 
1st Orion.  It might be of little interest to non contesters so you guys 
should focus on the delete button.  I may be mistaken but I believe 
there have been suggestions that Scott, W4PA used two Orions SO2R in the 
CQWW CW.  If you did that Scott, I would really like to know how you 
found the Orion for short burst mult hunting, if that is a technique you 
use. So FWIW I repost here.........


For my SO2R contesting, I have used two FT1kMPs for the past 20 months.  
The primary radio is my original MP and the secondary is a MkV Field.  I 
am  impressed by the design philosophy of the Orion, its specs and the 
findings in the ARRL reports.  While the two MPs have given good service 
in SO2R there are some areas in which I feel they could be better.  
These include, strong signal handling, filtering flexibility (worse on 
the Field than the original MP), DSP effectiveness and the complete lack 
of ability to adjust the CW envelope without dismantling the radio and 
then the application of a soldering iron.  I ordered an Orion around the 
end of October and took delivery 10 days ago.  My plan has been to 
evaluate it and then if satisfied order a second.

So far there are many things that impress me about the Orion and I mean 
seriously impress.  There are a few niggles.  Though I believe most of 
these will either be fixed in future firmware updates or I will grow 
accustomed to them.  Then there is one BIG issue which currently has me 
feeling the Orion is incompatible with use in an unassisted SO2R 
application.

Before I set out my observations let me qualify them by reference to my 
useage:  I am not cut out for phone contesting so I don't do it.  My 
contest effort is directed primarily to CW with some RTTY. These factors 
define my terms of reference.  Further, I don't need to tell you that 
there hasn't been a major contest in the last ten days so the baptism by 
fire is yet to occurr.

My experience to date with Orion has me convinced it significantly 
outperforms the FT1kMP in all of the MPs weak areas mentioned above.

Strong signal handling is noticeably better
The filtering scheme, comprising as it does, selectable xtal roofing 
filters in the first I/F (9 MHz) and a superb I/F DSP system which 
provides b/w selectable from 100 Hz to 6000 Hz in 10 Hz steps through a 
rotary control.  As those who are familiar with the TS870 will know; 
despite some other shortcomings, the I/F DSP filtering in the 870 is 
superb.  Well in the Orion it is not as good, it's BETTER.
The default CW envelope is excellent and gradients are adjustable from 
the front panel.
Not a factor for SO2R but I do find the QSK the best I have ever used 
(T.O.R.  I currently have TS50, TS570, TS870, TS930, FT1kMP, Field, 2 x 
K2, and an Omni VI+)

The problem with the Orion for SO2R is born out of something no other of 
my radios does......

The Orion, according to its specs and according to the ARRL review has 
pretty much the cleanest synthesiser I've seen.  Whilst I am prepared to 
accept at face value these claims there seems to be a fundamental 
problem with the way the synthesiser is managed by the Orions control 
microprocessor.

There are some limitations on the set ups available for tuning rate and 
synthesiser step size  The best of those available appears to be 10 Hz 
step size with High encoder rate selected from the menus.  This gives a 
tuning rate of 2.5 kHz per revolution.  There is currently no way to set 
a 10 Hz step with 5 or 10 kHz per revolution, which I would prefer.  
Unfortunate, but hardly the end of the world.

The BIG problem is this:  The Motorola Dragonball microprocessor used 
for housekeeping Orion operations appears to be way short of being up to 
the job.  There are numerous consequences of this, including:

When you press a button on the Orion control panel there is a noticeable 
delay between what should happen and it actually happening.  Fractions 
of a second but it's there.
The Orion's computer I/F runs at 57600 baud, a veritable race-horse 
compared to many other radios but any benefit is lost as the Dragonball 
processes commands at an altogether pedestrian rate.
When you change band from the front panel or under computer control it 
takes about two seconds for the frequency readout to update.

Niggles but not stoppers?  Probably.  But.........

With encoder rate at maximum and step size at 10 Hz, if you tune real 
slowly the steps are barely discernable, as they should be.  The 
illusion that you are controlling the rig with an incredibly stable 
linear VFO is complete.  You only have to tune a little faster though 
and the bottom falls out of this illusion real quick!
The Dragonball can't cope.  It collapses panting on the floor.  Instead 
of processing frequency change requests, it opts instead to merely count 
the encoder pulses until it finds enough breath to perform a qsy.  How 
does this sound?  Well, rather like you have one of the nasty 1980 
vintage synths.  This really cheapens the feel of the radio but that's 
not the worst of it.

Unassisted contesters have to find multipliers quickly and efficiently.  
We can't spend too much time trawling the band at a snail's pace because 
we'll loose valuable run time.  Efficient mult hunting requires rapid 
tuning with the ability to read some code as you traverse the band 
without always stopping on stations in order to copy them.  It's an art 
you fellas will understand and one which I have been unable to practice 
with the Orion, because the choppiness of the synthesiser creates such 
an overhead of confusion.  I haven't used the rig in earnest in a big 
contest SO2R but I can imagine what will happen when I am running at 3-4 
a minute whilst trying to mult hunt in 5-7 second bursts with my second 
radio while the run radio sends exchanges under computer control.  This 
just isn't going to fly!

The Orion is superb in many ways but it can't replace my SO2R FT1kMPs 
until this problem is solved.  And I have a feeling it will take a 
significant rework of the Orion's CPU/DSP assembly to do so.

Over to Ten Tec!

73

Bob, 5B4AGN, P3F