[TenTec] Ten-Tec commitment to customers...

[Merle Bone]

K5KVH said:
"Many owners do not seem to report the issues you have.  Maybe you got a 
particular radio that has bugs. "

NQ5T said:
"Seriously, there are still some things all of us would like to see
"improved", depending or whether your point of view is that something is
broken, or "it doesn't work the way I want it to and I paid for it to work
THE WAY I WANT IT TO", or I couldn't break the pileup because I couldn't
hear the guy (and you think you would have heard him on something else?), or
something."
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I believe a lot of bugs/issues are well documented and known by Ten-Tec. I have personally exchanged over 15 written letters and many emails with both Jack Burchfield - one of the RF designers on the Orion/Orion II - and with Gary - VP Engineering and firmware writer. It may be true that if you don't try using the Notch filter in the area of a strong CW signal you may not realize that it doesn't remove the carrier from the IF Bandpass and therefore causes the AGC to pump. It may also be true that if you don't seriously DX on SSB you may not notice that the Noise Reduction in the V2 firmware is much inferior to the V1 Noise reduction. If you don't run PSK31 you may not realize that the AUX output is very low in the latest firmware and may, does with my computer, require an outboard preamp before the signal is sent to the computer soundcard (See www.N6IE.com ) - and other issues that you may not observe if you don't try to use the extended capabilities of the Orion. 

I agree with Grant that there a still some things all of us (Most of us?) would like to see improved. I just think that Ten-Tec has done nothing in the last 6+ months to address any of these Orion/Orion II issues - and I hope they will soon dedicate some resources to address them. I think 
Scott (Ten-Tec Sales) said:
" At the moment, no anticipated delivery date 
for the high speed sweep board for the
Omni-VII and Orion II.   There is not going to be much of anything 
coming from us for Amateur Radio until
the RX-400 is built and delivered -- which will happen in the first half 
of 2008."

My hope is that does not mean no more Orion/Orion II V2 upgrades until the second half of 2008. I think that would mean no effort in over a year and could only be interpreted as very weak firmware support and no real commitment to new capabilities. We will see.
Merle - W0EWM