[TenTec] Buying a New Orion

[ac5e at comcast.net]

Hmmm - so far my expenditures to "finish" my Orion amount to exactly Zero. Unless I have forgotten a rig, that's several hundred dollars less than any of the many other rigs that have been resident here. 

The Orion has cost me a little effort to learn to operate - but no more so than most of the other rigs that preceded it - and less than a couple. 

It has cost me a little effort to unlearn some habits picked up operating JA equipment. And a small amount of trouble to shift cables around and retiming some things so everything works as it should. 

It has made me remodel my shack - and decide that I needed an antenna system that complements rather than detracts from the performance of the rig. So my wife gets the house she's been bugging me for for most of a decade, I get the antenna farm I want. My inertia has been overcome, and hopefully I will be in the new shack with some decent 160 through 30 Meter antennas by this time next year. 

Issues? There are still a few things I wish worked differently - but I wished that with my "new in tropical packing BC348" some 54 years ago. Most of the Orion's warts have been taken care of - and I can work around those that remain. I'm not so ossified I cannot learn a new way of doing something if it gives me more operating satisfaction. Not yet, anyway. 

On the other hand, I no longer annoy my neighboring hams with key clicks and phase noise. They still annoy me at times but that will soon change. I no longer wonder who the pileup is yelling at - I can copy the DX and the zoo. Even with the very inferior antennas that are the best I can do in the space I have.

So, if Ten Tec came out with an "Orion +"  and offered a reasonably priced upgrade; as they did with the Omni VI; I would buy the "+" and try it before I made a decision. Just as I did with the VI's.

But there are no perfect rigs. Never have been, never will be. NO piece of equipment can satisfy all users all the time. And it's unreasonable to expect perfection. But the Orion comes pretty close. 

73  Pete Allen  AC5E