[TenTec] ORION Specifications?

[Jim Reid]

Rick wondered:

> There is significant discrepancy for the Orion. 
[Between the ARRL measured data on the Elecraft
site,  and the Ten Tec data at their site.]
> 
> For the Orion, the specs are:
> 
> Ten-Tec's page:  101 dB  and  +24 dBm
> Elecraft's page:    92 dB  and  +22 dBm

> Does anyone know why?

Yes,  there are differences, I believe I have previously
read somewhere,  in "exactly how"  the ARRL
and Ten Tec perform these tests.  Quoting from the
Ten Tec site about these tests,

"In publishing our own spec data for the ORION, we decided 
to emulate the testing methods in use by the ARRL for our 
own numbers so a reasonable "apples-to-apples" 
comparison of receiver performance could be made."

I am not sure exactly what "emulate" is intended to mean,
and I do not know in what detail of instrumentation or
procedure the TT test may differ from ARRL,   but Ten 
Tec engineers have either written,  or implied,  that there
existed some "disagreement" with the ARRL "methods".

So,  does "emulate" above mean they went ahead and
used the EXACT ARRL method,  or only "emulated" it
in some way,  but not exactly,  hence different numbers?

And are the now published numbers close enough to yield,
as Ten Tec hoped, "reasonable apples-to-apples 
comparison"?  That is,  does Ten Tec also view the
above comparison numbers as a "significant discrepancy"
or are they close enough to be "reasonable"?

Don't know,  maybe Scott of Doug Smith will have a comment.
Comment both about what "disagreement" or differences
the TT engineers believed were valid about testing for
these sorts of numbers;  or perhaps,  that I am completely
wrong about this,  hi.  That is,  both sets of numbers were
obtained in exactly the same way (equipment,  hook up,
and procedure) and the differences about the numbers
may just be from the extrapolations inherent in reaching
to the supposed IP2 and 3 numbers,  and the ordinary
errors/differences  that can occur in fitting lines to 
graphed data points on a chart.

Also,  don't overlook the following sentence appearing
in the paragraphs introducing their test data as they
compare the Orion to other rigs;  just above the TT
data chart:

"We were not interested in competitive performance; the 
ORION was going to either have the unqualified best 
receiver performance by a significant margin over the 
rest of the industry or we were not going to bother 
putting in the serious engineering effort (involving 
two years of design and testing time) required to 
create a brand-new HF transceiver."

Clearly the Ten Tec staff believes they have accomplished
that objective.

Still very happy with my Orion!

73,  Jim  KH7M