[TenTec] Omni VI first impressions

[Steve Hunt]

Folks,

Thanks for all the helpful comments, both via the List and privately.

Concerning the "Disadvantages":

There was a consensus of replies that the variation of display brightness, and the "key up thump", seem to be "features" that other Omni VIs exhibit.

AGC characteristics, audio quality, and S meter calibration comments were generally under the heading "that's how it is" !

No-one seems to have my non-tunable "heterodyne(s)". I have listened to this a bit more carefully. At warm-up several heterodynes, one after the other, drift quickly through the pass band - all of them are non-tunable. Once the rig is stable, if I'm left with a heterodyne in the pass band it can be tuned out with PBT control. I don't mean "filtered out" with PBT; just a few degrees rotation of the PBT control around its mid position and the heterodyne rapidly moves in audio tone and out of the passband. If the PBT control is more than about 5 degrees away from its central position I never hear a heterodyne at all. I guess this must be some funny mixing product involving the15.3 MHz PBT oscillator.

The heterodynes are clearly audible above background noise, but they don't move the S meter and now I know how to shift them I can probably live with them.

Thanks again for all the comments.

Steve G3TXQ
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steve Hunt 
  To: TenTec at contesting.com 
  Sent: Friday, November 24, 2006 12:03 PM
  Subject: [TenTec] Omni VI first impressions

  Disadvantages

  1) An annoying heterodyne (non-tunable) in the pass band on all bands, significantly above the noise level.
  2) I don't like the agc characteristics. Perhaps after 22 years I've just got so used to the Corsair "hang" agc. I find myself turning the RF gain way back on the Omni to stop the noise rising between words - even with the agc in the Slow position
  3) Audio quality on SSB Rx is not as nice as the Corsair. I've tried various external speakers on the Omni, but the Corsair always sounds better
  4) The meter and Frequency display is quite dim (even at the highest setting) compared to the Corsair's bright display. And the meter illumination varies with the number of LEDs that are on. For example if you switch VOX off and on the meter illumination varies!
  5) An annoying "thump" in the speaker going from key down to key up.
  6) S meter calibration not as accurate as the Corsair. I set the Omni as per the book (S9=50uV, S3=0.3uV) but it's not as accurate as the Corsair in-between. [It probably wouldn't normally worry me, but at the moment I'm doing a lot of a antenna azimuth measurements]
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