[TenTec] First and last word on Orlando

[Mike Stricker]

Hi,
I am the person who originally pointed out that Ten Tec's presence was missed at the Orlando Hamcation this year.
For the previous 3 years, I have spoken with various Ten Tec representatives at the Hamcation...I only live 20 minutes from the fairgrounds.
I made this observation and publicly pointed it out because after 2+ years of playing around with various Orion 2 updates that weren't  "complete", I decided to sell it and I was hoping to try out an Eagle.  Unfortunately, Ten Tec was not present but I did get to play with an Eagle at the HRD display.
During the past 2 years there were a few updates for the Orion 2 that were released. Each time, I found issues with them and wound up reporting them back to Ten Tec.  I was told that they could not reproduce them and to send them the settings on my XCVR, which I did.  They still could not reproduce them.  I spent many hours using my test equipment devising tests that demonstrated the issues that I reported.  Since nobody else seemed to be complaining as loudly as me, I guess there wasn't a problem...until I devised and submitted the tests that demonstrated the issues.  After a couple of months or so, low and behold, a new update came out that addressed the more serious issue but not all of them.  I was told by Ten Tec that the minor issue was easy to resolve but unfortunately it never was with 2 subsequent releases.
As an engineer that works with programmable devices regularly, I know that if an issue is easy to resolve, it is done so that the customer is happy.  In this case it was not.  
I really liked the Orion 2 and I would not have sold it had Ten Tec addressed the one issue that drove me nuts since I could SEE it every time I used my radio...the fact that the spectrum display did not accurately show an LSB signal appropriately.  My feeling was that the receiver was fantastic and I would probably be happy with the Eagle.
I went to Orlando expecting to see Ten Tec and speak with them about the Eagle but they were not there.  The way I look at things is that if something simple wasn't or could not be fixed in a timely manner and since the manufacturer is not really promoting their equipment, I would have to shop elsewhere.  From a financial point of view, I suspect that Ten Tec lost more in sales of new radios from not being at the show than they would have spent on attending the show.  Yes, I wrote a note to Jim Wharton and another Ten Tec ambassador about this and received no response.
With all of this secrecy, one has to wonder.
Mike Stricker, WA1SEO