[TenTec] New Orion I v2 Firmware version: 2.062a

[Merle Bone]

Buck (K4IA) said:
" Very tinny, very low fidelity with a tendency to add a  click at the end.  That is what 2.062a sidetone sounds 
like to me. " 

"On my radio, the raspy CW is particularly bad with Fast AGC and  narrow 
bandwidths (<1khz).  It is starting to sound like the DSP in an  ICOM 756Prox."
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I am hearing similar "distortion" on both weaker CW signals and on the CW sidetone note. Although the sidetone note is much better then it was in the previous release, it still has a very annoying noise at the end of each element - particularly identifiable when you slow down the code to 3 or 4 words per minute. At higher speeds is just sounds like a "repetitive noise." In my case the sound gets worse as the audio gain is increased - I can raise the signal audio with an external audio amp without raising the level of the noise. If I raise the audio level of the Orion the noise signal comes way up. I worked with Ten-Tec but they could not duplicate the problem. They offered that I could send the Orion in to be worked on, but I just went back to V1.373b5 - which has no such sound on the keying sidetone. 

The CW distortion is worse on weak signals - maybe correlated with maximum gain in the DSP/IF chain. Again I really don't hear that distortion/fuzziness on V1.373b5. I sure would like to get on to the new V2 firmware - and a lot of progress seems to have been made - but this audio distortion is really distracting when you work something like the WPX for several hours.  I'm back at V1.373b5 and hoping Ten-Tec will keep working on the V2 code.
73, Merle - W0EWM