[TenTec] Pimp My Eagle

[Steve Berg]

I came very close to buying an Eagle.  And, the reasons I didn't have 
largely been covered by Rick.  The deciding factor was the lack of 
keyboard frequency entry.  Another is that I have large hands, and the 
front panel was a bit crowded.  Instead of trying to make microscopic 
radios, Ten Tec might want to look at a past, though unjustly maligned 
pair of products, the Delta II and Argonaut II radios.  These units are 
small, but have most of the front panel capabilities of the much larger 
Omni V and VI units.  Using a slightly larger front panel on the line of 
the Argo II on the Eagle Plus would go a long way on making these radios 
a lot more attractive to people like me.  And the controls on the older 
units are much more intuitively obvious than those on  many of their 
newer products.  I rarely had to look at the cheat sheet for my Argonaut 
II, but have to keep the manuals for the Omni VII and Argonaut VI within 
reach.  If I want to change the CW speed on the Omni VII or Argonaut VI, 
I have to consult the manual for the sequence of adjustments needed to 
do this.  With my older Ten Tec rigs, I adjust a knob.  I wound up 
buying an Omni VII, and once I discovered that it offered little in the 
way of increased performance over my Corsair II, it ended up on the 
shelf.  The Corsair II does not have keyboard frequency entry, but it is 
so easy to use well.

My Argonaut II is sitting in Ten Tec Service.  I'm looking forward to 
its return, fixed.

I am glad that the Argonaut VI is apparently going to be retained. Those 
are a subset of the Eagle, and are one phenomenal little radio!

My $0.02

Steve WA9JML