[TenTec] Heil Orion mod

[John L Merrill]

BTW my Orion is vintage Sep 03 and the mic shell is connected to chassis
ground.

John N1JM


-----Original Message-----
From: John L Merrill [mailto:jmerrill1 at adelphia.net]
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 12:59 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: RE: [TenTec] Heil Orion mod


But from TT pin 4 still has 8 or 9 volts. You still have to use the mic plug
shell for  ptt shield/ground unless you do the Heil mod.

John N1JM

-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of N0KHQ at aol.com
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 12:42 PM
To: tentec at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Heil Orion mod


On the back of the circuit board that has the 4  pin foster plug make sure
that you cut the trace that is carrying the 9+ volts  to pin #4. And then
solder
a wire (I would use 14ga wire-lamp cord) to pin #4  long enough to get to a
good close chassis point ground.
In addition to this  I would solder a 0.01pf cap from pin# 1 (audio send +)
to pin#4 (chassis ground)  this cap will allow for audio frequency's to pass
but will not allow for radio  frequency's to pass, they will taken straight
to
ground and not allowed to enter  the audio chain.

If you have a later Orion, manufactured after May or  June of 2004 the above
mod is not required. If your not sure that your Orion  already has a
balanced
mic input, take an ohm meter and measure the resistance  from the Orion mic
shell to the ground wing nut on the back of the Orion. If  your rig has the
factory ground mod, then your meter will read a direct short,  if not the
meter
will read an open and the above mod is required.

Now to  the mic. If you are using a mic wiring setup (XLR) that has 3 wires:
Audio Send  + (pin #2), Audio Return - (pin#3) and Ground (pin# 1) you will
want to make  sure, on the solder side of the XLR that pin# 3 is NOT jumped
to
pin# 1. If it  is cut the jumper.

>From my testing here, using the PR-40, Goldline Pro  and Heritage mics very
good audio can be achieved by 1st using the Orion TX-EQ  to balance out the
audio and then setting the Orion SP to about 2. This is  easily seen using a
PC
based Spectral Analyzer like SpectraPlus or Hamalyzer.  Set the Orion low
roll
off to 50hz and the TX bandwidth at 3K to 3.15K. Just  remember that low
audio
frequency's (50hz - 100hz) carry the Power of speech and  the higher
frequency's (2K to 3K) carry the intelligence of speech. Its  important the
these
frequency's be balanced. Too much low and people will have a  hard time
understanding what you are saying, too much high and it will sound  like you
have your
shorts pulled up to high. Balance, balance, balance. You will  want to
strive
for the low frequency's and high frequency's to gradually roll  off nicely,
not
sharply.

On my Orion, the ground wing nut has a 12ga wire  running from it to an 8'
ground rod outdoors and is in no way tied to anything  carrying RF
frequency's
or AC grounding. Its what I call my DC  Ground.

Have fun and take your time.

73

John / N0KHQ / St.  Louis
http://www.hamuniverse.com/antennas.html
http://www.cebik.com/moxon/n0khq.html

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