[TenTec] Orion II NR and Notch - Thoughts?

[Ron Castro]

Tim:  You are seeing exactly what the rest of us Orion II owners are seeing. 
The notch is outside of the AGC loop, so the S-meter does not respond.  The 
NR function is mediocre and not as good as in the original Orion with v. 1.x 
firmware according to those who have made a comparison.  This and several 
other of the "things that need fixed" (as they say down south!) are on my 
website at:

www.ronc.users.sonic.net

To TT's credit, they are getting the list whittled down, but here are some 
that are still there:

    Low frequency audio response on SSB not as good as original, not to 
factory advertised specs.

    S-meter calibration is way off:  about 12 dB 'stingy' below S9, 20 dB 
'generous' above S9.

    Distortion in AM detector

    AM maximum received bandwidth used to be 12 kHz, now only 6 kHz.

    "Click-clack" sound in CW sidetone.

Otherwise, a fine radio that easily beats the competition.

Ron Castro
Chief Technical Officer
Results Radio, LLC


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "NZ8J" <nz8j at woh.rr.com>
To: "Ten Tec" <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 1:36 PM
Subject: [TenTec] Orion II NR and Notch - Thoughts?


>I just received a new Orion II and have some observations on the NR and
> Manual Notch functions.
>
> The NR seems to work better on CW than SSB in my case, although in both
> instances the audio is distorted and/or breaks up more often than not.
> Seems to depend on signal strength, weak signals are most susceptible to
> distortion although strong signals will distort as well.  This is with
> the NR set as low as 1, it gets worse the higher the NR is set.  I don't
> recall this with my original Orion; the NR seemed to work much better
> with little or no distortion.
>
> The manual notch will eliminate tones just fine, but will not reduce the
> level of the tone like I seem to remember the original Orion did. It's
> like it is outside the agc loop, although the manual and all advertising
> talks about it being at IF level with the tone reduction being
> "reflected on the S-meter" I take this to mean it takes the tone out,
> not just the audio.
>
> Other than the NR and notch issues, the radio really works well and I am
> happy with it, it's just a little frustrating to see improvements in
> some areas at the expense of degradation in others. I am using the
> latest firmware, I wonder if what I am seeing is representative of what
> others experience and if it has been this way through all versions of
> the O2 firmware.
>
> I used the radio during the CQ WPX CW contest this weekend and the
> receiver is just super, it's a pleasure to use it on cw.
>
> I'd like to hear from other O2 owners on the above two issues to get
> your inputs and experiences and if there are any "tricks" to using the
> NR. Please respond either on the list of off line to nz8j at woh.rr.com
>
> Thanks
> Tim
> NZ8J
>
>
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