[TenTec] Sweep display freezing on Orion

[Eric SENSI]

Hello Grant and all the others of course !

Many thanks for your messages, unfortunately I can't reply to all of them
but be sure that I will keep all that has been said in a folder ! A real
paper folder, not an MS Windows folder ! Hi !

So...

Excuse me but I never ever said that this radio worth nothing ! And more, I
don't want to change it for anything else...

I'm pretty sure my next review will be positive if these functions were
running, I will give a solid 5/5 !

What you should know is :

- I'm not really new at the Orion and reading the manual will not help
making those bugs going away !
- It is true that I own mine for 3 days now but I've played with the first
Orion arrived in my country more than one year ago
- I learned everything that is possible to learn on the Orion for more than
one year too (internet, user manual on PDF, forums, Orion users, eham, some
friends who bought this radio, the Tentec DVD made by W4PA himself... etc
etc)
- Saying that I've not played with the Orion is false ! I know it more than
some hams who just use the radio "as is".
- Asking me to do a master reset every week is out of this world ! I will
never do that, it is not normal to do this and if it's the price to pay to
own the "nothing tops Orion" radio, then, I think we have all a really big
problem to solve !
- I can't even think of my customers (I'm an IT engineer) who have to do a
master reset of all the servers, clusters and Linux stations I have
installed during all my business years ! They will put me naked on the wall
and shoot me like a poor dog ! :-)
- To the operator saying that I'm "very unprofessional", you're right dear
OM, and that's why I'm "very unprofessional" into the amateur radio business
that I didn't tolerate a non fully functional radio. I kept a Kenwood
TS-870S for 2 years which performs flawlessly every day without any single
CPU reset ! ;-) This radio was more than half the price of the Orion.

Well...

What I have reported to the tentec list was obvious ! Today again, I deleted
the DV memory and start again to record a message... as soon as I wanted to
play it on the air, the radio is locked in transmit mode OR the radio is
pushing a high pitched noise thru the speaker !

You don't have to be an engineer to figure out that this function IS NOT
working ! And I bought also the Orion for it's DVR capabilities ! So 1 point
down for this !

Yeah, okay, the sweep function bug is not really important to me but I found
it in only 2 hours, so I was afraid of a non working radio and all the
problems to return it at Tentec ! A nightmare for me, for sure !

And finally, you don't really know what we (Europeans) have to do AND pay to
own this radio !

- Price is $5000 without the tuner
- Cannot pay the radio in 4 parts, like in the USA
- We have not the 30 days "money back guarantee" as provided in the USA

So, with all of this, if i'm not a Tentec lover, then I don't know who I am
! ;-)

Many thanks to AA6E who understand that for some hams like me, owning an
orion is a dream... And I spare a lot of money during one complete year to
pay the $5000 of that radio here in Belgium ! Again, it is true that my
review is not negative in any way ! Maybe I bite some "proud american sons"
saying that this radio is an unfinished symphony !

I love what is build in the USA, I own a lot of USA stuff here, Buell
motorcycle, MusicMan Stingray basses, Gallien-Krueger amplifiers, Aguilar
speakers build in NYC, Thiel loudspeakers for HiFi, Grado high end hi-fi
headphones, and much more... so I didn't have to proof to anyone that I
believe in the quality of the US production, that's why I sold my Icom's,
Kenwood's and Yaesu's rigs to buy this Orion, never forget that ! ;-)

This evening will be the "master reset #1" evening ! I hope that I will see
some beatles or bugs coming out of the radio... I know there is a lot of
empty space in it ! :-) Just joking, of course !.

All the best. Eric, ON6CV.

PS: To all, pardon my poor english but it is not my mother language ! I'm
sorry.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : tentec-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]De la part de Grant Youngman
Envoye : lundi 6 septembre 2004 19:36
A : tentec at contesting.com
Objet : Re: [TenTec] Sweep display freezing on Orion



> Eric, I just read your review on Eham and feel that after owning the
> Orion for just two days, you really don't know what is going on yet
> with the rig.

It does seem that one ought to give a strange and foreign object more
than two days, at least look for some input and guidance, attempt to
actually learn something about the radio from those who've already
bothered to do so,  and separate cockpit error from real problems before
putting out a "review".

There was a very interesting editorial "Engineers as Soothsayers" in the
September issue of IEEE Computer, about some of the problems design
engineers face when working on new products.  One comment I found
particularly interesting as I read the article ...

" .. humans imagine and create, and those who use their creations soon
relegate them to the status of kitchen brooms, taken for granted except
when they malfunction or otherwise fail to satisfy their owner's ever-
increasing expectations.  If there is a kitchen broom god, she gets busier
every day."

Grant/NQ5T