[Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use

Tue Feb 8 10:03:26 EST 2005

Great information from the group!

I talked to a Ten-Tec engineer who worked on the design of the RX-340 and the Orion.  He mentioned that the Orion is an Omni VI + with DSP at the IF.  I am sure he meant that as a simplified description, and that there are differences in the front end of the Omni and Orion.  However, from the data it appears that the Omni VI+ will give nearly the basic performance of the Orion.  He said that the second receiver (general coverage) was an offshoot of the one in the Pegasus.  The specs for close in performance on the Pegasus are better than on the RX-340.  I mentioned that I was using an R-390A and he said that he thought the R-390A was probably the best receiver available for close in performance that had general coverage.  He had not run the HF-2050 so had no opinion on that receiver.

For use in the ham bands a used Omni VI+ is pretty tempting.  The local ham shop has one for about 1/3 the price of the Orion.

The only problems I have with the R-390A are the fast tuning rate, and if you enjoy CW you need to swap out a filter.  I wonder if the vernier tuning dial on the 75A-4 could be used on the R-390A?

Thanks,
Barry

________________________________

From: premium-rx-bounces at ml.skirrow.org on behalf of Cecil Acuff
Sent: Tue 2/8/2005 8:13 AM
To: Carcia, Francis A HS; premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org
Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use

I believe the Ten-Tec Orion has implemented multiple, selectable roofing
filters.  I would imagine it's in the primary receiver though which I also
believe is limited to the Amateur bands only.  I'm not sure the secondary
receiver which is General Coverage takes advantage of that technology.

Don't own one though...

Cecil...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carcia, Francis A HS" <francis.carcia at hs.utc.com>
To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 7:10 AM
Subject: RE: [Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use

>        I find this quite interesting. I think a prepost filter ahead of
> the
> new SDR hardware will be required. The tuned RF stage
>    in the R390A does a good job of stripping out wide band crud. Multiple
> Roofing filters is an option no receivers have yet
>    have a big effect on performance. I still think the SDR needs a stage
> of
> conversion to an IF with multiple roofing filters
> ahead of the bit bashing. fc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walter (Volodya) Salmaniw [mailto:salmaniw at shaw.ca]
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 11:21 PM
> To: Williams, Barry
> Cc: premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org
> Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use
>
>
> At 07:20 AM 2/7/2005, you wrote:
>
>
>
> Before I went any further I wanted to check and see if any of the RX-340
> owners had tried the receiver on the ham bands, particularly in a CW
> pileup.
> It would also be interesting to see if anyone has used the RX-340 to
> listen
> to a weak AM signal within 10 kHz of a very strong signal.  I did some
> listening tests with my HF-2050 and it appears to work pretty well, even
> in
> a pileup on 7010.  On the other hand, the filters in the HF-2050 are not
> very sharp as compared to modern DSP filters.
>
>
> Hi, Barry.  I have a Ten Tec 340, as well as a HF-2050, an Icom 756ProII,
> a
> R390A with a SE-3, and a AOR 7030+ which are often on at the same time, so
> A-B-C-D-E testing is possible.  Of all these receivers, (and this is only
> my
> opinion), the Ten Tec performs the worst on MW with a strong adjacent
> signal.  The MW dxers out there are well aware of this fact and have gone
> to
> some trouble installing roofing filters to correct the poor performance.
> For the longest time, I A-B'd the 2050 and the 340 and virtually in every
> instance, the 25 year old 2050 out gunned the 340 by a long shot.  I was
> all
> set to sell the 340, but it's performance on HF is really very good, and
> with ERGO4 computer control, it's a very nice set up.  The 7030+ is an
> excellent performer in close, as is the 756, and of course nothing seems
> to
> bother the old Collins R390A.  I know several of my MW colleagues have
> added
> the roofing filter on the 340 which improves the performance markedly, and
> they seem very pleased, but at the price of losing the wide audio
> bandwidths
> available in the 340..........Walt.
>
>

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