[TenTec] Still great service at Ten-Tec

[Paul W. Gallier]

I thought I should report my recent great experience with Ten-Tec Service. 

I had to send back my Orion for repairs after I made a dumb mistake.   To make a longer story short, while testing the T/R circuit in my SB-220, I think I got 110v ac on the line to the TX OUT connection and blew some T/R switching transistors.   After about 2 weeks TT sent the Orion back to me and it was better than before.  Besides replacing Q8,Q9,Q10 and Q11 on the CPU/DSP board they updated several boards.  I bought my Orion as a demo and apparently it was made in 2002, since the serial no ends in a 2.  Here are the mods they made:

     Updated synthesizer board
     Updated power distribution board 3-#30662
     Updated ALC circuit on I.F. converter board
     Updated mic power supply circuit on CPU/DSP
     Added RFD filter to Mic cable 1-#81983
     Checked Alignment and operation and made a 48 hr burn-in

The repair cost was very reasonable and they shipped it back promptly.  Everything works fine now.

And so does the QSK circuit added while restoring and updating my old Heathkit SB-220.  I implemented the circuit designed by R.L. Measures, AG6K.  It uses a vacuum relay for switching RF out, a reed relay for the RF in, and electronic bias switching.  It works beautifully, switching in about 2 milliseconds, and is very quiet.  I trigger it from the AMP 1 open collector output of the Orion.   The SB-220 plate current is zero between dits and dahs.  Zero to 1500 watts PEP in 2 milliseconds!  Well, I do use an 8 millisecond ramp setting on CW and there is a 15 millisecond delay set in the Orion.  Hey, this is old stuff, but it was a fun building project.  I will put the amp on Ebay later for sale. 

My thanks to Paul Clinton and his service group at Ten-Tec.  Keep up the good work. 

Paul Gallier, WQ1C