[TenTec] Orion II NR with 2.031

[Douglas Shock]

Well, I have spent the last 4 hours working with release 2.031 and my
impressions are far different of the NR capability than when it first came
out.



My receive antenna is a rain gutter. The band of choice for week signals
today is 40m.  I have several CW signals in the noise floor so NR is very
important.



My observations are that it actually works very well...however there is
little to no room for error on extracting the weak signal from the noise
floor. So you better be sure the sig is zero-beat to your passband or forget
it.  I found that 4 works for most of the cases but not all the time. I also
found that it seems to work better when the BW is as narrow as possible.



Once engaged, the noise floor drops immediately...very nice. On loud
signals, s3 or better, the NR actually enhances the signal...very nice copy
indeed.



So overall...the TX audio reports have been exceptional while running the
Heil FR-40 via the W2IHY 8 band EQ once I made the correct adjustments to
compensate for undocumented changes.



NR actually does work once you figure out how to dial it in...This dialing
it in does appear to have changed since 2.030. Not sure why but needless to
say...it still works and even better. Going back and forth from 2.030 and
2.031, the noise floor levels drop significantly on 2.031 when compared to
2.030. Not absolute yet but TenTec is certainly back in the right direction.




I wish my observations could be more scientific with scopes and analyzers
but it is what it is...my observation.







Catch yea on the air!



Doug / K0ZU