[TenTec] "Being a Contrarian . . ."

[Martin Ewing]

I was surprised that the QST review referred to the on-line discussions, 
mainly on this list.  Their discussion was pretty even-handed, I thought.

The tone in QST is definitely less bubbly and booster-ish than you read 
in lots of other reviews -- even in QST.  Is that good or bad?  Despite 
some glitches here and there, the basic performance report really 
shines.   Isn't that the mainstream view on the tentec list?

G3SJX's Radcom (RSGB) review showed less familiarity with the bugs and 
frustrations that some of us have run into. His "biggest disappointment 
concerns the VFO tuning knob resolution."  Different strokes for 
different folks!

It's a big problem with reviews that they focus mainly on technical 
"speeds and feeds", which can be measured objectively.  
Software/firmware behavior is much harder for a reviewer to deal with in 
a short review period.  QST does point out that the performance of the 
rig can change radically from one firmware version to the next.  So true.

73 Martin AA6E

K4IA at aol.com wrote:
> I thought the QST review was fairly negative.  A lot of "damning by  slight 
> praise."  The overall tone of the review was negative with lots  of side 
> remarks about shortcomings:
>  
> "it does so at the expense of certain features ... amateurs may well  have 
> come to expect.
>  
> "hasn't addressed all the original Orion's shortcomings"
>  
> "falls short of the color screen implementations now commonplace  on 
> competitor's products"
>  
> long discussion of a software crash that was fixed with 2.0b6
>  
> NR distortion - not as good as the original Orion (gee, where have we heard  
> that before?)
>  
> complaints about the multi-knob to make adjustments
>  
> "Unfortunately TT made no effort to improve the band sweep and  metering"  
> "Sweep has little or no practical value"
>  
> "No hint of an ALC function or measurement"
>  
> "Auto-notch ineffective under 230 hz"
>  
> But if you can make it to the end of the article without writing off the  
> Orion II, they do conclude "the Orion II's performance will be a dream come true  
> for many discriminating radio amateurs."
>  
> I thought the RSGB article was a lot more positive.  
>
> k4ia
> Craig  "Buck"
> Fredericksburg, Virginia USA
>
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