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

[Eric Rosenberg W3DQ]

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>

-----------------