[TenTec] Orion II Sweep and Tuning Rates - a small experiment

[Grant Youngman]

After all of the gnashing of teeth about the sweep not updating during
tuning and whether it's useful or not, etc. etc., I decided to try and
figure out when it worked, and when it didn't.  Ok, it you "spin" the knob,
the sweep will freeze, period.  But ... 

What I found was that whether the sweep is "sticky" and stops updating is
dependent on rotational speed of the tuning knob (obviously) and whether the
Encoder Rate in the menus is set to Slow or Fast.  It appears to be
independent of STEP size.

I've always kept Enc Rate set to FAST by default, and so what I saw -- and
verified tonight -- is that a knob rotational speed of about 3-4 sec per
revolution is about as fast as you can tune and have the sweep continue to
run well enough to follow a signal.  That's why my comments have always been
along the lines of "when you tune, the sweep stops updating", because 4
seconds for one knob revolution is slow.  

However, having yet another "slap myself in the forehead" epiphany, I reset
the Encoder Rate to SLOW.  In that position, at anything I'd consider a
normal tuning/scanning rate -- in the slightly under 1 sec per revolution
range -- the sweep just kept right on trucking, and I could easily follow a
signal up or down the band on the sweep display.  Even at somewhat faster
roational speeds the sweep updates often enough to allow reasonable
tracking.

May not solve YOUR problem, but if you're seeing the sweep just stop
altogether you might want to check your encoder rate setting.

Grant/NQ5T