[TenTec] [Orion] Orion RX and Monitor "Going To Sleep"

[Carl Moreschi]

Eric,

This was the reason for tentec coming out with V2.  As I understand it, the
following was tentec's position on this.  There was a timing problem in V1
that could not reliably be fixed.  V2 instituted a radical design change in
how the front panel and 2 DSP processors communicate with each to remove the
timing issue.  In V1, each microprocessor had to know what the others were
doing all the time.  This proved to be impractical and resulted in various
lockups because of state tables not being updated with 100 percent accuracy.
In V2, each microprocessor stands on its own merit and does not need to know
what the others are doing.  This is a much more reliable design point.

Carl Moreschi N4PY
121 Little Bell Drive
Bell Mountain
Hays, NC 28635
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Eric Rosenberg" <wd3q at starpower.net>
> To: "Orion Reflector" <orion at contesting.com>; "Ten Tec Mailing List"
> <tentec at contesting.com>
> Cc: <rick.williams at telus.net>; <dtsnbits at rfsquared.com>; "Peter Alterman"
> <peter_alterman at hotmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 4:03 PM
> Subject: [Orion] Orion RX and Monitor "Going To Sleep"
>
>
> > During the ARRL DX contest this past weekend, my Orion (v1 w/1.373b5
> > firmware) went to sleep about 6 times, just as VE7TK described it in his
> > email of April 5, 2006 below.
> >
> > Only once were we (W2CDO, who was the other op, and I) conscious of what
> > may have been the cause -- when we plugged in a headset, and then only
> > once when we did that.
> >
> > All the other times, we individually noticed that while the noise floor
> > seemed the same, there were no signals to be heard.  We ended running an
> > ever so slight amount of audio from the B VFO to monitor things.
> >
> > The monitor and sidetone functions also died twice, unrelated to the
> > receiver dying.
> >
> > In both cases, powering down and back up cured the problem. But when
> > you're CQing during a contest, those seconds lost are crucial.  You lose
> > the Q's and the run frequency!
> >
> > Has anyone figured out what's going on here?
> >
> > 73,
> > Eric W3DQ
> >
> > ------------------
> >  From VE7TK:
> >
> > I am having some issues with static and my Orion 565. When I first
> > acquired my Orion I noticed that on occasion when I plugged in the
> > earphones the
> >
> > receiver would die.  All the lights were on but "nobody was home."  I
> > wrote it off as the wrong type of headphones
> > 8 ohm stereo).
> >
> > Time went by and I acquired some 60 ohm impedance David Clark stereo
> > headphones and tried them out.
> > Same problem!  This has occurred with both version 1.xxx and 2.xxx
> > firmware.  (I have reported the
> > symptoms to Ten-Tec Service and Ditsnbits.)
> >
> > Now I carefully ground the tip, ring and sleeve before attempting to
> > plug in the phones but sometimes this doesn't
> > even work. It's a real pain if your trying to get some rare one and grab
> > the phones only to have the receiver die!
> >
> > I'm on the wet coast and humidity is not an issue plus I don't own a cat
> > and the station is well grounded.
> >
> > Now the question - have others noticed this issue?  Turning the Orion
> > Off and ON rejuvenates the receiver.
> >
> > Thoughts appreciated.
> >
> > 73,
> > Rick
> > VE7TK
> >
> > Website:  http://www3.telus.net/ve7t <http://www3.telus.net/ve7tk>
> >
> > -----------------
> >
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