[TenTec] Orion 2 Noise Blanker Question

[Mike Schatzberg]

Hello Jon,

The effectiveness of the NB on the O2 is impacted by the bandwidth selected. 

You may need to open the bandwidth to reduce distortion and improve both noise reduction and recovered audio clarity. 

The O2 has generally always worked well with lower RF gain and somewhat lower audio gain. See what varying the bandwidth does for you when engaging the NB where necessary. 

73,

Mike
W2AJI 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 23, 2018, at 4:23 PM, jon greenwood via TenTec <tentec at contesting.com> wrote:
> 
> Gary,
> Thanks for the followup. I know you have more experience on the Orion's than Me.
> So I had already tried both reset process'. Playing with it today with Field day going on so lots of activity. So here is update to my original post. Every Orion I have had I have set up with the volume very high and then turn the RF gain way back and use the RF Gain as the "'volume" control. With this Orion 2 that seems to not be a good setup. I also had the preamp on and that is what was causing the sweep saturation. So operator error!
> What is weird is I have had 3 Orion's and still have one and on that rig it works great set up the other way..... It only has the standard sub rx which doesn't seem like that would matter as the issue is on the main. Unless cabling for the rx366 causing an issue.
> I am on 40 right now and can create the terrible audio or not just with those adjustments. Do you know if the audio amp in the Orion 2 is of higher gain? OR maybe the firmware is different enough that it cannot be set up this way. 
> I guess best question is on your Orion 2 if you set the volume control 70-80% and then use RF gain dialed way back, with the hardware noise blanker ON do you get distortion on the audio? 
> OK doing more testing... I now have the rf gain at 82 on both the main and the sub. Volume on both at about 20-25% and same antenna selected for each rx.  I am on 40 cw with preamp off for main and sub and using diversity reception. When the hardware noise blanker is on I can hear a station about a KC up sending cw. not the tone just in the noise being modulated on off with the cw beat. Nothing being heard on the sub which of course does not have the hardware blanker. turning the blanker off solves the issue. 
> Set up this way it is not nearly as bad but for sure is still there. I will have to go back to the yahoo group and check but I think there was a discussion about a firmware update that some felt caused this. If I can find an older version it might be interesting to install the older firmware to see what it does. Of course I may then loose the RX366.
> Now I am going to just turn the NB off and work some stations! The diversity reception with the rx366 is way cool. 
> 73Jon
> _______________________________________________
> TenTec mailing list
> TenTec at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec