[TenTec] ORION, THE TERRIBLE - another man's opinion

[Henry Pfizenmayer]

A few weeks ago I had a signal at S9 plus 55 db from a
local dxer 800 cycles above an S2 dx station on 40 cw . I could still copy
the S2 dx !!!! - I knew the local was there but the dx was readable !
Then when the local moved up 2 khz into the pileup , he was
GONE ! Of course that is also a credit to his tx phase noise and keying .

I had just about given up ham radio with my TR7/R7 combo  (even with 300
cycle crystal filtering ) which I always felt was about as good as they come
for 25 years - but recently I get so much hash from switching power
supplies and touch lamps and line noise etc etc in my neighborhood , many
nights I would just turn it off - The Orion with 100 cycle DSP filtering is
letting  me work stuff I had no prayer of working before ! Sometimes the NR
helps , other times nil.
I do have the 600 cycle Inrad filter in the 1 Khz slot.

Does it have glitches ?, YEP , does it do strange things or lock up from
time to time ?, YEP - but 99 percent of the time a simple on/off will have
me going again same freq , same settings and away I go . Have only done one
master reset in the three months I have had my Orion. (Ver 1.372) . Do you
learn to be real careful about diddling with things while in QSO? YEP . And
if you do diddle , you learn to make changes SLOWLY !

For me , the glitches  seem to be inversely proportional to the
number of hours you have used the rig. Probably the result of much less
twiddling after you begin to understand the operation and make  fewer 
changes
in normal operation.

Its a keeper and I believe the new software will eventually solve 99 percent 
of the
issues. I came away from the Dayton HV after talking with Gary Barbour for a
half hour about his software work and listening to his conversations with
others for an hour on software and firmly believe  that it will happen !

Its (the Orion) a keeper for me. 80 and 40 Cw is fun again.
Another man's opinion after three months.

Rgds-- Hank K7HP