[TenTec] Should I buy an Orion now or wait

[Jerry Volpe]

Toby Pennington wrote:

>What exactly is "cw signal  timebase jitter"?   Any relation to dead spots
>or noise bursts?
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Bill Tippett" <btippett at alum.mit.edu>
>To: <tentec at contesting.com>
>Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 5:38 PM
>Subject: [TenTec] Should I buy an Orion now or wait
>
>
>  
>
>>AB7YF wrote:
>>
>>     1) the DragonBall processor used by the Orion has been EOL'd
>>(discontinued) by Freescale/Motorola. Does this imply that TT will be
>>upgrading the Orion to another processor when their supply of
>>DragonBall's runs out? or does it mean that an Orion+ or Orion II is on
>>the horizon?
>>
>>     2) From what I've read about Orion it has the potential of being a
>>truly awesome rig, but given the somewhat unstable nature of it's
>>firmware etc. can it truly live up to it's potential in it's present
>>incarnation? or will a hardware upgrade(s) be necessary to fix all of
>>the little nits?
>>
>>         Harry, from what I understand of the objectives of
>>the forthcoming version 2.0 firmware upgrade, it should
>>address problems caused by internal communications between
>>the main CPU and the two DSP processors.  These communications
>>problems have apparently been the cause of instability in some
>>functions (random lockups, CW signal timebase jitter, etc) and
>>I doubt these problems were caused by an underpowered CPU.  I
>>have no idea about the support life of the DragonBall is but
>>it is likely years (maybe even decades) and not days or months.
>>End-of-Life happens all the time in industry and yet the world
>>still somehow manages to turn.
>>
>>         If you want a perfect rig, you will need to wait
>>until you go where George W5YR (SK) recently went. Orion
>>already IS an awesome rig, especially its strong-signal handling
>>as consistently measured by ARRL, RSGB, W8JI and Sherwood.
>>
>>                                         73,  Bill  W4ZV
>>
>>
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>>    
>>
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>  
>
Sometimes I think the first thing someone should do when they have that 
initial 'glimmer' of "maybe I should buy an Orion...." is to distance 
themselves as far as possible from this reflector until after they buy 
it and try it for the 30 day guarantee trial/return.... THEN maybe 
exchange notes with others on the Reflector but ONLY after reading 
through the archives.. The second thing I think they should do IS NOT 
TOUCH any of the programmable options for the first SIX months! Just 
leave it in its defaults. Just my tongue-in-cheek recommendation... well 
maybe more real than that.

73,
Jerry, KG6TT