[TenTec] Orion v2.055

[Chuck Chandler]

Well, after using this version in the ARRL DX SSB contest last night for a 
few hours, I'll change my opinion a bit...

Good points:

The Speech processor and mic gain are under control.  They are still more 
agressive than 1.372 but are much more manageable now.  I adjusted them 
pretty hard as I was working SSB on 160 looking for new ones on top band. 
That wound up at mic gain 40, SP 6, Tx Eq -10db with a Heil DX element.  My 
voice sounded harsh and piercing but clear.  Sunday night I'll back them 
down quite a bit, but the adjustments aren't nearly as critical.

The audio loss in narrow bandwidths is gone.  Going from 400 to 100 hz in CW 
the signal level seems to stay unchanged.

Nits fer Dits 'n Bits:

The noise reduction works better than 2.054, which isn't saying much. :)  I 
never used 1.371 but people who did rave about it.  Even 1.372 was better at 
hushing the static and letting weak signals pop out of the silence.  The NR 
works, and I've used ones that were worse.  This one has worked better in 
the past, though.

The auto notch doesn't seem to work anywhere near as well as I would expect. 
In fact, it appears to work as well as an AF notch.  The big S-9+20 
tuner-upper is there, on the S-meter.  The tone is gone but there is a big 
"Cone of Silence" where the signal used to be.  Somewhere under that great 
big absence of sound is the DX.  Completely covered by silence.  This 
function really needs to be moved further up the signal path so it works 
more like it used to.  Or something.  It used to do a better job.

Unchanged:

This version is stable, for me.  So was the 2.054b.

No more loss of sub-RX audio in either version.

Sweep works just fine in both versions.

Still have the left ear clicking on CW.  Not the worst problem in the world, 
fix the other stuff first.  But, keep it in mind.

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73 de Chuck, WS1L
charles_chandler at comcast.net
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