[TenTec] Paragon PLL solder residue

[Gary J FollettDukes HiFi]

I don’t know at what serial number TT figured out that they had a problem but I am pretty sure they corrected it before the Paragon 2 came out.

The style of that board is so different from other TT boards that  think they may have outsourced the build of that board.

When TT advertised the Omni 5 back in the day, they always made a big deal about the  low phase noise present in the excellent Omni 5 local oscillator system compared with the Paragon (and, by inference, all other PLL synthesizer radios). That was partly true, because the Paragon was so awful  in the regard. Drake TR7’s were not all that bad in terms of phases noise but still not as good as the Omni 5. The Collins KWM-380 was a total joke in that regard, the worst of the lot. The only radio to have had a worse synthesizer was the Signal One mil Spec 1030 (before the Icom 781 rendition was produced).

All in all, Drake was to blame for making general coverage receive appear important when they brought out the TR7. The compromises they had to make (up conversion, PLL designs that were stable but oh so noisy, all served to make that vintage of radios a lot worse than they should have been. Only Ten Tec with the Omni 5, 6 scheme succeeded at the time in building a radio in which phase noise was not the limiting factor in terms of performance. 

When TT produces a new radio, I would prefer they go back to that local oscillator design, implement newer high dynamic range front end designs, no up conversion, minimal use of large scale digital chips that become unavailable after three years in the marketplace and all interference limiting features inside the AGC loop. 

Alternately,all digital portions should be one one replaceable plug in board so that repairs could be made using newer parts as old ones became obsolete.

You’d have an Omni 6+ without the birdies and its useless notch filter.

The simple numeric display would no longer be a $400 part that you can’t get 5 years after the radio is produced.

Gary

> On Dec 4, 2015, at 12:49 AM, k7mks at comcast.net wrote:
> 
> I've heard that factory soldering concerns, with PLL boards, may have been satisfactorily addressed somewhere in the 500-600 serial number range. Rumor or fact? S/N involved? Tnx. joe k7mks 
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