[TenTec] Just an observation

[w8au at sssnet.com]

At 01:04 PM 6/25/2012, Rsoifer at aol.com wrote:
>The trouble on Field Day is that all the casual ops come out and cannot
>operate these radios properly.  Our club sets up simple, easy to use Icom
>radios for them.

Object lesson for Field Day!

Our club, years ago,  managed to pick up a couple TenTec 544 transceivers.
(TT Triton 4, Digital)

This is the optimum FD rig.   Five FD bands, very functional, no 
bells or whistles
to confuse anyone.   Even the newbie can sit down and operate this rig without
reading the manual.  And the TX puts out clean RF... very little phase noise
when operating multi-station.  This suffices for the main FD modes...SSB/CW.
(and even digital modes with short exchanges)

Not bad for a 38 year old rig!  (yes, time flies!)

Does it meet every club members approval?   No.   There's always one or more
that have the belief that only new rigs are worthy of use.  The fact that these
transceivers have not had to be repaired in all these years, while the PLL sets
(with their enormous circuitry) have,  is something they don't want 
to hear. :-)

Would any of us in our home shacks settle for a 544 (or 540) in 
today's world of
9 HF bands and increased need of frequency stability under long extended
transmissions of all our new digital modes....probably not.   But for 
FD... ya can't go wrong!

Long live the 544/540....(and they probably will!)    (Tnx, Al and 
Jack, and the early Sevierville gang)

Perry  w8au