[TenTec] Oprion II Playing

[Grant Youngman]

It does indeed play (not surprisingly) :-)

I don't have anything reconnected other than an antenna and power yet.

The AM tuning step issue with the sub-receiver in all 1.xxx versions has
been fixed (this was actually a DSP code issue, I think).  And AN appears to
work properly if NR is also on at the same time.  Haven't tried QSK yet, to
see how that goes, and need to reassemble the audio setup.

The color display is nice, but I never really had a problem with the B/W
version.  It is nice and crisp, and there are several options available.  I
haven't decided which I like the best overall.  The orginal B/W are there as
options also.

Under some circumstances there's a bit of an "edge" and what sounds
something like harmonic distortion or a funky mixing product added to the CW
tone when NR is activated, or if you prefer just some rasp.  Under narrow
bandwidth conditions my impression is that there is a solid increase in S/N
ratio, and that "edge" I referred to contributes to that.

Threshold defaults are different -- now 1.0 uV rather than .37 uV or
whatever it was previously.

CW receive was NOT working on the sub-receiver as received.  A Master Reset
did not fix the problem.  A Memory Clear Reset did.  So some things have not
changed :-)

All of the early audio routing bugs that accompanied the original Orion
release do not appear to be issues this time, thankfully.  And so far at
least, nothing has frozen with the sweep running.

One thing I don't recall is having to have the Main receiver in CW mode for
the spot function to work.  With the Sub selected and in CW mode, Spot does
not function unless the Main is also in CW mode.  I haven't had my Orion for
a couple of months, so my memory may just be dim on this.

Dial frequency accuracy is excellent.  I recall the Orion arriving at about
30Hz off at 10 Mhz.  The Orion II, after a couple of hours on the table,
settled at just 3 Hz high.  Not bad.

Grant/NQ5T