[TenTec] Think about trading for another HF rig? ; the grass isn't always greener at the other side of the fence...

[Duane Calvin]

Most of us didn't know what the K3 had to do with the Orion or Ten-Tec when
discussed on this board either except it seems for a while we had to endure
months of articles about how superior the K3 is (and, in some ways it is).
So, a simple counterpoint here on occasion might be welcome.  Especially
since it's just a link for those who are interested to follow.  Objectively
speaking, they're both great radios, and they both do the job, just a bit
differently.

	73, Duane

Duane Calvin, AC5AA
Austin, Texas
www.ac5aa.com  
 
-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Martin Ewing
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 1:01 PM
To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Think about trading for another HF rig? ;the grass
isn't always greener at the other side of the fence...

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Mark <pa5mw at home.nl> wrote:

> Guys,
>
> Sure many of you want to have issues fixed on their Orion through new
> firmware, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the
> fence.
> I don't want to bash Elecraft ( I love them and own 2 K2's and XV144 and
> XV50) but for those of you who want to trade their Orion for a K3, you
> better read this first:
>
> http://www.g4ilo.com/2009/09/review-of-elecraft-k3-18-months-on.html
>
> Why am I showing this news?
> My friend has a K3 for 18 months too and he sure recognizes the
> mentioned issues.
> We have compared his K3 on 160m against my Orion on a few occasions.
> Marginal differences in favor of the Orion.
> But do I think about a K3? For VHF transverter use yeah, perhaps. For
> HF, low bands?
> Not in a million years.
>
> Still the K3 is also a GREAT novelty in hamradio equipment.
>
>
> Some love sheep, others love cows*
> Both furry and tastefull :)
>
> 73 Mark, PA5MW
> * me likes pork
>

That's an interesting K3 review, but I don't see what it has to do with the
Orion or any Ten-Tec product.  He spends most of his ink taking down the
memory and scanning features (non-features) of the K3.  OK.  That will be
important to some people, but it's probably not a killer for most users, who
are HF or weak signal VHF/UHF types, I bet.

The Orion's memory operation is kind of weird, too.  Does anyone use it for
any good purpose?  I've only used it to set up 60 M channels.

Human factors are personal.  No surprise that a small front panel is not as
user friendly as a large one -- other things being equal.  Some of us have
problems with the Orion style, even so.  Lots of button pressing for
commonly used functions.  Of course, you get used to it.  On the other hand,
Orion actually gets criticized for being so big and having so much empty
volume inside.  Go figure.

The one on-topic item is that other vendors have their firmware feature
update issues, too.

73 Martin AA6E
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