[TenTec] SOTA RADIO

[rick@dj0ip.de]

EXCELLENT POINT JIM:  having the owner or a senior engineer who actually
uses the gear himself is priceless!  

I have thought for years now that none of the Japanese companies have anyone
in a senior position actually using this stuff.  Stuff like key clicks
(Yaesu), ALC spikes (Kenwood) and user unfriendly menus would not exist if
they did.

LONG AGO, Al Kahn and Jack Burchfield were contesters.

Al was not only big into DX contests, he and W4KFC actually rescued CQWW DX
contest from going under when CQ Magazine changed management and was run by
people not interested in the contests.

Jack preferred the SS contests which back then ran at a faster pace than the
DX contests.

Their "likes" were reflected in the radios they designed, built and sold.

We all get old; when the Argo6 was designed, I think Jack failed to
recognize that the younger ones among us (and Jim who thinks he's still
young) want stuff they can run up mountains with and run off of batteries.

IMO this is also the problem FLEX has.  Gerald was never a contester and I
think the new Sun Expert MB-1 and Icom's IC-7300 will prove he was totally
wrong in thinking and preaching that radios do not need knobs.

On the bright side, Mike (Dishop) is a long time Ten-Tec user and loves his
Orion.
We know that Ten-Tec is listening to us here.
I believe Ten-Tec will be around for a while.

73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)



-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Brown
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 9:07 AM
To: tentec at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] SOTA RADIO

On Thu,3/17/2016 12:38 AM, rick at dj0ip.de wrote:
> I have a 12 Ah Li-Fe-Po battery that weighs only 4 lbs. It runs at about
13v. In comparison, my 9 Ah Gel battery for my motor scooter weighs about
twice as much.

Yes. if you have to carry it up a trail, LiFePO4 batteries are wonderful. I
loaned by KX3 plus KXPA100 to AF6RT, who was hiking 2 miles with 2,000
elevation change with W6JTI to light up a rare 6M grid. W6GJB and I both
loaned him 20A 13V LiFePO4 batteries. They didn't drain mine in a day, and
never touched Glen's.

Wayne Burdick, N6KR, one of the two owners of Elecraft and the chief
engineer, is a backpacker at heart. All of his designs squeeze current draw
to the absolute minimum, sometimes too much to suit guys using his gear at
home. :)

With the KX3, I recommend that users set the built-in RXEQ to roll off
everything below 400 Hz to maximize headroom in the earphones.

73, Jim K9YC
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