[GE] Lowband Orion Help

[Geoff Fors]

Jack,

The details are to be found over on the Yahoo GE Orion group.  In order to
get the low band Orion on 6 Meters, you have to make changes to the files in
the programming software to move everything up by 4 MHz. In other words, you
trick it into thinking that it's programming a 49 MHz channel when it's
really doing a 53 MHz channel.  These are referred to as SC4 files.  There
is a limited bit of information about the SC4 files because GE still sells
the proprietary software and the group moderators don't want to have issues
with them.  On the other hand, the files necessary to modify the DOS
software are in the group files section.

If you don't have it already, the bigger problem is finding the software.
There is an older DOS version, out of production,  and a current version
called ProGrammer which is Windows based.  Only ProGrammer is still sold and
supported by M/A Com, and it's expensive, because it covers a wide range of
GE radios in addition to the Orion. The only consolation is that the
conventional ProGrammer is a lot less expensive than the EDACS ProGrammer
is.  I am still hung up by not having the software, so my low band Orions
are sitting on the shelf.

Apparently there are no hardware changes necessary, but a search of the
Orion group messages on this topic would probably be a good idea.  There are
a bunch of other issues such as 512k vs. 256k radios and that kind of thing,
making it a bit of a hassle to learn everything necessary to get these
radios running.  Having the very latest software eliminates some of these
issues.

Geoff
WB6NVH