[TenTec] Orion II

[Grant Youngman]

> 1) What power supply is needed?

13.8V at 25 amps, minimum.  The stiffer the better.  Several people have
experienced issues with both Orions traced to wimpy power supplies or too
much voltage drop between the supply and the radio.  The Orion is not
particularly forgiving in that regard.

> 2)  with the normal setup of a beam and 80 & 40 Inv Vee's all 
> with fairly good swr is the tuner a necessity?

The internal tuner isn't a necessity, but it's certainly convenient.  I
don't know what "fairly good" SWR means, but if you keep it below 2:1 with
whatever frequency ranges you operate, you'll be fine.  The T-T internal
tuner is good. LDG makes one that is also a memory tuner and less expensive,
if you don't mind digging into the radio to install it.

> 3) What about the other "filters".  1.8 seems like SSB so 
> really not needed here as I do mostly CW work.

If that's the case, you're probably right.

> Are the 600 and 300 Hz filters that good and would they make 
> that much difference?

Yes, in terms of close in dynamic range they matter for CW.

Grant/NQ5T