[TenTec] My First Ten-Tec

[Jerry Haigwood]

    My first Ten-Tec was a Scout model 555.  I purchased this radio new with
all the band modules, noise blanker, and hand mic.  I don't remember the
cost but it was somewhere around $700.  I was looking for a mobile/portable
radio and I thought this radio would be great.  Unfortunately, it was not.
Here is the story.
    The Scout had the worst drifting problem that I had ever seen.  The PTO
would drift at least a kilohertz during the first 1/2 hour if not corrected.
It slowed down but never stopped drifting.  To correct for this drift,
Ten-Tec used a "huff and puff" circuit.  The huff and puff was implemented
in the microprocessor.  The keyer was also implemented in the same
microprocessor.  The keyer had higher priority than the frequency
correction.  So, when I was on CW, the microprocessor would be busy as a
keyer and had no time to do the huff and puff.  Because of this, the
frequency would "jump" when I paused keying.  The receiving station would
have to tune around to find me again.  It was not a good thing.  I finally
got fed up enough, that I sold the Scout for $350 with all modules, mic,
etc.  It was unfortunate that Ten-Tec could of fixed the problem by just
putting in a small keyer chip.  But in order to save money, they decided to
let a single processor do both the keyer and huff and puff operations and it
could not keep up.  Their decision cost me about $350!  The Scout was
probably Ten-Tec's lowest hour!
	Now fast forward to 2011.  Last year, I decided I wanted an analog
radio.  I looked around and decided that the best analog radio was a Corsair
II.  However, I hesitated buying a Corsair II because I still had the bad
taste of the Scout in my mouth.  After lots of questions, I decided to give
Ten-Tec another try to purchase a Corsair II from a guy in California.  It
was a smart decision.  I also purchased a remote VFO and filters from
another person in California.  So, I now have a Corsair II with all the
filters and a remote VFO.  The CII is a fine radio.  It hears well, has a
nice clean transmitter and the beautiful QSK.  I have made a few mods to the
CII.  Recently, I built and installed a DDS to replace the PTO.  I
duplicated Steve Hunt's (G3TXQ design.
<http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/corsair_pto/> Steve's design is a direct drop
in replacement for the CII's PTO.  It will probably drop in to other Ten-Tec
radios that use the same PTO design.  I use the Corsair II daily and love
it.
73, Jerry W5JH