AW: [TenTec] First Contest Experience with Orion

[Christoph Rheker]

I was planing to make some comparisions between my TS870 
and the Orion here. The 870 has sometimes problems with 
many strong signals here in central EU that may create 
"ghost" signals. But unfortunately the band wasn't nearly 
as populated with S9++ signals as it is in CQWW.. 

One interesting issue:
While listening to very weak CW signals at night, it appeared 
that the 870 accentuates the signals better.. signals that 
did sound clear in the 870, were not as clear in the Orion, 
the Orion sounds watery. Hmmm..

Solution:
I had the RX Equ setting so that I get a warm, friendly sound 
in SSB. It appears, this is not the best setting for CW.. 
changing it to amplification of the high and attenuation of the 
low audio frequencies => much better for CW.

RX Eq setting for SSB was +9dB, changed for CW to -6dB or so.

73,
Chris DL4YAO

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: tentec-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] 
Im Auftrag von NJ0IP

Gesendet: Montag, 12. Juli 2004 06:41
An: Tentec at Contesting. Com
Betreff: [TenTec] First Contest Experience with Orion

All of you Engineers and micro-bit chasers, you can delete this
without reading it.  It is subjective - not measured.

I finally had an opportunity to use an Orion in a big contest -
although just for 3 hours.
I used it from my home QTH where my only antenna is an 80m dipole
fed with openwire thru the world's best high-power symmetrical
matchbox (Annecke).

My previous radio was an Omni VI+.

My last serious contest with the Omni was CQWW CW 2003, so it's
been a while.
I no longer have the Omni so I had no cance to "A/B" the two.

Therefore this is VERY subjective.

Here some thoughts, no particular priority:

1. We're having lots of hideous wx here in EU these days and the
bands were full of static noise.  Playing with the AGC really
helped to quiet the band down.  This is a feature I didn't have
on the Omni VI+.

2.  Especially on 40 and 80, I ran the DSP bandwidth down to 100
Hz.  No ringing, no problems - just clear seperation of stations
being heard.

3. Downside:  several times two stations were calling CQ "on top
of each other" and I was able to clearly seperate them from each
other.  So when I called the one I wanted, I actually got (and
worked) both stations.  Interpret it how you want.  The main
point is that I could distinguish and copy both seperately
whereas (subjectively) I don't think I could have seperated them
on my Omni.

4. Every 5 KHz I copied W4PA, regardless of which band I was on.
Is this a feature, a bug, or a firmware glitch? ;-)

NO WAY I would go back to an OMNI VI+ (but for the money, a used
OMNI VI+ is probably the best buy on the planet right now).

Next contest plans are for IOTA in 3 weeks.  For this contest
I'll take my ORION to one of our BCC's best remote contest QTH's
with lots of BIG (HUGE) antennas.  Feedback to follow.

73
Rick (DJ0IP / NJ0IP)