[TenTec] ARRL Reviews

[John Rippey]

I can remember years ago when the this topic elicited reams of verbiage on
[in] several discussion groups.

With the changes ARRL has made in reporting IMD3 for receivers, all you have
to do is subtract 8-10 dB to get very close to Rob Sherwood's findings. No
biggie. The latest review is of the IC-7410 by Rick Lindquist, WW3DE, in the
upcoming October issue. He specializes in long-winded reviews, and you have
to read each line carefully sometimes to get the drift. He does report, for
example, that he found no difference between semi and full break-in on CW.
Meaning: there is no QSK available on the IC-7410 no matter what Icom
claims. (Overall, I cut Lindquist some slack because he had a stroke after
retiring from the ARRL and seems to have recovered quite well.)

Incidentally, I have owned quite a few DSP-based transceivers, and have not
found the same problems with static crashes that Sherwood has reported, and
I've used these radios when surrounded by thunderstorms.. (Lindquist did say
in his review that such things muted the audio on the test IC-7410 on
occasion.)

IMHO, Sherwood and his work are admirable, even irreplaceable. Yet I think
he is overly critical of the ARRL and its lab procedures, given the fact of
the ARRL's large overhead that must be paid for and the good work they do
overall. They beat the FCC in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, for example, which is no small accomplishment. So I can live with
a little less rigor in the testing area as long as Rob Sherwood (and Peter
Hart) are around to offer their opinions.

73,

John, W3ULS