[TenTec] My Jupiter Experiment

[Darrell Bellerive]

For all of you who have been following my Jupiter experiment, I promised 
my first impressions.

This all started with my desire to see if indeed I would like a DSP 
based radio. I have been entrenched in the analogue world and had not 
been impressed with the DSP gear I had the opportunity to use so far. 
But I wanted to give DSP another go and had never used a Ten-Tec DSP 
based radio. So a Jupiter seemed like a logical, lower cost way to try 
one out.

My want ads resulted in a number of great offers, and I now have a very 
nice grey/green Jupiter that was manufactured at the end of 2002. This 
Jupiter does not have an internal antenna tuner (I have an LDG 
autotuner) and does not have the larger memory chip.

After connecting up the radio, I was not impressed; In fact very 
disappointed. The first thing I was greeted with was loud microprocessor 
noise on 15 meters, loud receiver noise, and touchy AF and RF gain 
controls. I almost put the Jupiter back in the box and posted a for sale ad.

The Jupiter had firmware version 1.23 b2 from late 2002. I thought I 
would upgrade to the latest firmware version and see if that made any 
difference.

The radio would not accept 1.33 directly, but did take 1.29, and from 
there allowed me to update the PLD and load 1.33. So the radio is now at 
1.33 b3, the latest firmware.

The difference? Wow!!! This is a completely different radio; The 
microprocessor noise is just detectible if I go looking for it, the 
receiver is now quiet, and the AF and RF gain controls work as they should.

I like what I see and hear so far. It will take me a while to get used 
to the user interface, try out all the features, and audition the sound 
quality, but that is exactly why I bought it.

I will post my impressions after a number of weeks or perhaps months.

Thank you to all who helped me with my questions and made offers.

73, Darrell VA7TO


-- 
Darrell Bellerive