Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021
With the coming of the month of March starting tomorrow, I’ve decided that I’m going to put a different rig as my main transceiver on the operating desk in Studio C.
My wife asked me to move my DX Engineering boxes in the foyer up to the shack and get them out of the foyer ASAP, so before I did that, I had to make room in the shack for a stack of boxes — the boxes containing my Yaesu FTDX-101MP, speaker/power supply, etc.
I have had one box sitting on end that’s been pretty much overlooked for months, and today I decided to see what’s it it. Turns out the rig in that box is the Ten Tec Omni V I purchased in 2019. The rig’s been in the box every since.
So my plan is to finish unboxing the Omni V and put it in the place of the Paragon. I don’t know what filters the Omni V has, but I have an extra Ten Tec 500 Hz CW filter that I’ll install if needed.
There’s not that much difference between the Paragon and the Omni V; the display characters are much larger on the Omni V. The biggest difference between the radios is that the Omni V does not have general coverage receive, as does the Paragon.
Ten-Tec’s advertising of the rig touts the lack of general coverage receiver as a way to improve the rig’s receiving performance, the Omni V’s crystal-mixed oscillator vs. Paragon’s synthesized oscillator.
I picked up the Omni V for a song, and it was allegedly a working rig — a fact I plan to confirm tomorrow. I really don’t need the Paragon’s general coverage receive, and I like the look of the display of the Omni V. Another difference is that on the Omni V, you can add a crystal filter to the 9 MHz IF for additional filtering.
If the Omni V works as advertised, I expect that I’ll wind up putting both Paragon’s for sale on eBay. I really like my Ten-Tec rigs, but the damn truth is that all three are vintage late 1980s rigs, meaning they’re more than 30 years old.
MISSED IT BY … *THAT* MUCH. There was a nice Kenwood VFO for the TS-530S that was on eBay and I missed the end of that auction. I’m not really salivating to buy an external VFO, but I would like to have one to go with the radio.
I’ve decided that I’ll definitely sell the TS-520SE — unless the new filter caps fix its transmit capability. If it does, I’m going to be in a bit of dilema — I prefer the look of the TS-520, but I have to have the CW filter. IF I can find the appropriate CW filter, I’ll pursue it. At this point, I may consider buying a different TS-520S/SE already equipped with the CW filter if one shows up on eBay. If I can get a satisfactory TS-520, then the TS-530S will likely go.
MAKING ROOM …. Right now, my operating position in Studio C consists of two 6-foot cafeteria type plastic tables. One of those tables I use to test/repair/pack up radios for sale on eBay. And that particular table now holds by Hallicrafters SR-400 Cyclone, and right now I need to move that station off the table to make space for prepping some rigs to sell, especially now since I have a new Ten-Tec to try out, which tentatively means I’ll have one, possibly two Ten-Tec rigs to sell.
I’m still sitting on a bunch of equipment I need to sell … I have that Yaesu FT-2100B amp in the attic to sell; I have an Ameritron ALS-500 mobile amp and remote head to sell; and various other items to sell.
My wife is going to adopt my existing shack, but she can’t do that until I get my gear moved upstairs. I have to have room in Studio C to move the desks, and there’s boxes of old clothes and junk she needs to sort first. It seems like an endless cycle, hi hi.
NET PARTICIPATION. I narrowly missed winning the perfect attendance award for my CW net for the month of February. I checked in 25 of 28 nets, only one person had better attendance.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z …. SK … SK … (dit dit) …