[TenTec] Orion II

[Richard Detweiler]

>In these two areas, Orion performs inadequately.  I have been led to 
>believe
>these issues will be fixed AND specifically, fixed for those of us who have
>already invested in Orion.  Today's announcements suggest otherwise.  If my
>reading of the situation is correct, then I have every right to be feeling
>cheated.
>

Understandably,

However it seems that  replacing 7 boards and display becomes essentially 
replacing the whole radio.

The filtering problem in Orion I is effectivly fixed with the Inrad 762 
filter in the 1Khz slot.  This for me is the only real hardware issue so 
far,  and even at that, I wouldn't declare it major.

Having some idea of V2 through discussions with Gary at Dayton,  It will 
address the issues you've addressed here about processor speed and sweep 
display.  A discussion on the internal design of V1 vs V2 convinced me that 
V2 will be faster by eliminating significant wait states on each processor.  
Perhaps significantly faster.  Howerver not as fast as the new Orion II for 
the obvious reason of the faster cpu.  Ultimatly if it is fast enough then 
it doesn't need to be faster than fast enough.

I had been planning on a second Orion. I've decided to go ahead with the 
Orion II and will be able to compare it to the Orion I on V2 in my own 
shack.    I'm hopeing for the results as stated by others that the basic RX 
will be virtually the same.  I'm also hopeing the filtering performance of 
the Orion II for the narrow filters will be better.  Orion I is still a 
great Contesting Rig and DX hunter.  Orion II sounds like it will be a 
better DX hunter and prettier to look at.

Best wishes,
Rich
K5SF