[TenTec] Orion II v 2.042A: Not Ready for Prime Time!

[Linwood Davis]

I'd like to play around with that version 2.042A code tonight.
Does anyone still have a copy they can send to me?

Lin
WB1AIW
linbdavis at earthlink.net

Ron Castro wrote:
> Here are a list of problems I found right off with the v. 2.042A, even after doing a battery reset and two master resets and memory clear:
>   1.. Very noticeable distortion on all audio.  Sounds like overdrive in IF or DSP section.
>   2.. AGC hang in AF AGC.  S-meter goes up and never comes down!  At same time, RF gain goes down and does not come back up.  If you manually turn the RF Gain all the way to 0, then back up to 100, the radio is essentially muted.  This will not happen if the "AGC Hang" setting is 0, but then distortion is really bad.
>   3.. NR does not work in AF AGC mode.  Does seem to work well in RF AGC mode.
>   4.. Much more audio drive needed on AUX input for SSB.  It looks like about 10 dB more.
>   5.. AM carrier= 1.25 Watts max!  That's at 100% PWR setting.
>   6.. FM carrier= 6.4 Watts max.
>   7.. SSB Speech Processor gives only around 50 Watts max peak output.  You can get it up to 100 Watts when you crank it to "way beyond reasonable distortion".
>   8.. Could not find any sort of S-Meter calibration
> Here are the good points so far:
>   1.. Side tone is louder and spot level is too.
>   2.. Waterfall display is much improved.
>   3.. Difference in frequency between Main and Sub improved, but still not "phase locked".  I detect about 0.1 Hz differential which should make it fine for true diversity antenna work.
>   4.. In RF AGC mode, the NR really does seem improved, although it's hard to tell with the audio distortion mentioned above.
> So that's the good, the bad and the ugly of it!  I'm QSYing back to v. 2.039d, the last one that worked right...
>
>             Ron  N6IE
>        www.N6IE.com
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