[TenTec] Orion questions and a comment or two (Long-ish)

[Martin Sole]

Hi all,

First a big thanks for the inputs about S meter setting and software 
versions. Well it didn't take long but I've gone back from 2.062a to 
1.373b5. My prime comment about why would be that the earlier version 
just sounds nicer, I thought the V2 sounded much harsher. The effective 
lack of a scope is unfortunate given how much is otherwise made of that 
function and what I hoped for but it certainly is not worth the 
degradation of some much in the sound department I think. I do miss the 
band stacking register idents though.

Here are a few questions which I had not thought about before but they 
have me a little puzzled right now.

Coming back to the S meter first. I found the preset under the top cover 
just behind the front panel. Also the preset that adjust the FWD power 
meter setting on transmit. Adjustment of the setting behind the front 
panel seems to be more of an overall meter sensitivity. If I adjust it 
for minimum S meter on receive with a dummy load connected then the 
transmit power reading never goes above about 40 watts, even with the 
FWD meter pot fully up. This raises the questions for me about where the 
zero point really is, should it be on S1? Should it be on the black bar 
below S1? In the middle of the bar? Is this calibrated with the 
filtering set at 2.4KHZ, 500Hz? Maybe I need a service manual. What do 
others do for this? Right now the analogue meter seems little more than 
a wiggly stick with some pretty lights!

CW keying. I don't use and have never used full break in. I'm no big CW 
op but when I do I use only what I think is traditionally called 
'semi-break in' where the rig stays in the transmit, without carrier 
out, sufficiently long enough for sending of say a full over including 
inter character, letter and word gaps. I have seen QSK delay in the menu 
but if I set this to give an acceptable result the delay at the end of 
the message seems overly long. How can I switch between full and semi 
break-in?

Other CW oddities. When in CW mode any press of the keyer or PTT causes 
the radio to transmit carrier out. This happens without regard to the 
state of the VOX on/off setting. Further, if VOX is pressed on during CW 
receive the receiver audio is lost, though the radio is not in the 
transmit state. Am I doing something wrong?

Having read some of the documentation with regard to care in setting the 
AGC in particular the programmable AGC it talks about values which seem 
very fast for the delay. So fast that I have to presume they are really 
only suitable for very weak signal CW. I know that I need to play much 
more with this to get where I want to be but knowing that for SSB use 
the numbers may look very different is a good confidence check I think. 
On weak voice signals it seems very easy to have a receiver that is very 
noisy in between speech syllables and makes it very difficult to copy. 
That said I have found with careful adjustment that it some cases it is 
possible to hear those same weak signals but with essentially zero 
background noise. Almost like the receiver is muted, very strange.

I am thinking about a modification for the loudspeaker out connection. 
It seems this can only drive a single speaker but I wish to use the two 
receivers driving two speakers. I could use the AUX outputs and feed a 
stereo amplifier but see no reason when the radio has a perfectly 
adequate amplifier for one speaker. I think duplicating the audio amp, 
controlling and feeding it from the AUX left amplifier inside the radio 
might work. I note that the loudspeaker socket on the rear panel is 
already a stereo two circuit type. Almost as if they cut a corner here I 
think.

Quite a long post this one. I have to say how much I like the overall 
feel of the radio. I'm no menu fan and think they could have had front 
panel switches for a couple of things in menus but overall I'm still 
very happy. Remote control in particular seems very smooth.

Martin, HS0ZED