[TenTec] E-Ham Bad Orion Review

[Tommy]

"The performance I hear about sounds very desirable, and the crashes and
glitches sound very frustrating."

Absolutely!! I am  three weeks short of having had my Orion for a year. It
has been both a pleasurable and very frustrating experience. Fortunately Ten
Tec can easily be blamed for this!! If we are long-time Ten Tec users, we
are spoiled because in a heck of a lot of cases, when you open the factory
shipping box, basically all you have to do is put the radio on your desk and
in a huge majority of cases, it just sits there and works for you....FOR
YEARS!!

However the Orion is the first of a new breed of radios wherein software is
an intergal part of its operation ability. They do not have it completely
right yet, but similar to the Gates organization, they sure as heck do not
give up on getting it right either. I hate to use this comparison, but the
Orion is similar to Windows operating system, but in this case I am
hoping/betting the Orion came out similar to Win NT. And with each firmware
update, I am hoping this will be the Win XP version. And the Orion is
getting 'close'.

Am I upset because the Orion 'doesn't work the way I expected'? You bet I
am. But the reason I keep it is because of the excellent reputation
established by the company who built it.

Tom - W4BQF


Subject: Re: [TenTec] E-Ham Bad Orion Review


> >
> >
> > I know some of the older
> >generation are vehemently against putting up with any little glitches
etc. that are
> >common in most computer defined electronics of ALL kinds today.
> >
> Well, maybe I am one "of the older generation". As long as I have been
> using computers running Windows I have been annoyed by occasional
> crashes. I have never accepted this as okay, although I have put up with
> it in order to take advantage of the capabilities of the computer. I do
> not think that consistant and identical output  and functionality for
> consistant and identical input is too much to ask from a machine. I
> would say that is about where I draw the line between a good tool or
> machine and a toy. When I get in the car to drive on the highway, I want
> the car to steer to the right when I turn the wheel to the right EVERY
> TIME, not just most of the time. And I don't want to have to pull over
> (assuming I have not crashed and died) to shut the engine off, and
> restart it in order to get the steering to work right again. Now that I
> am running a computer with Windows XP it is much closer to a tool than
> any windows operating system computer I have used before, they have been
> closer to toys. I grew up with radios that pretty much did the same
> thing every time I did the same thing to the controls. That is what I
> expect out of a radio. I don't think it is too much to expect. Some
> people may put up with erratic behavior in order to get excellent
> performance (most of the time) and some people would rather have
> consistancy with almost as good performance. I have never tried an
> Orion. The performance I hear about sounds very desirable, and the
> crashes and glitches sound very frustrating.
>
> If your computer or radio was an airplane, would you go up in it? With
> or without a parachute? I would like both my computer and my radio to
> work so reliably that my answer to those questions is: yes, without a
> parachute. Maybe that is an "older generation" attitude.
>
> DE N6KB
>
> >
> >
>
>
>
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