[TenTec] E-Ham Bad Orion Review

[Bill Tippett]

KT0DD wrote:
 >I am also amused by the posts on here By Sinisa Hristov...

         Todd, if you ever get to the point of actually owning
an Orion, you will find Sinisa's article here of great help:

http://www.geocities.com/va3ttn/UsingOrionRX.pdf

I've owned my Orion since August 21 (a full 6 months prior
to Sinisa's original publication of his article) and I found
his comments on AGC to be extremely helpful.  Although I had
discovered most of the issues he identifies with Threshold,
I was unaware of the effect Decay and Hang can have when
copying extremely weak signals (bottom of page 4).  On balance,
I believe Sinisa's comments have been far more helpful than
harmful.  I sincerely appreciate them and hope he will continue
the contributions he has made.

         I normally wait at least one full year before purchasing
a new electronic product of any kind.  In the case of Orion, I
decided that was unnecessary because of the firmware update
capability, and I have not been disappointed.  Sure, there have
been many issues, some major along with many minor ones, however
the tradeoff of having a vastly superior front-end for
contesting and low-band DX-ing was worth the trade-off to me.

         Regarding eHam reviews, I pay very little attention to them
since they tend to be more of a beauty contest than actually
based on any factual measurements.  If you want to read one
of the most insightful reviews by a guy who has been doing these
for years, read G3SJX's review in RSGB's June Radcom cited here
previously.  Peter Hart has been testing radios for at least 15
years using a very consistent methodology.  When he says what he
did about Orion ("truly awesome performance" in the headline),
I would pay a lot more attention to that, as well as measurements
by Sherwood Engineering, ARRL and W8JI than some random review on
eHam.

                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV