Ten-Tec_Orion_565_review_2004.pdf

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1、18June 2004 RadCom www.rsgb.org Reviewed by Peter Hart, G3SJX The Willows, Paice Lane, Medstead,Alton, Hants GU34 5PR REVIEW Ten-Tec Orion HF T en-Tec has acquired a reputation for making radios with a good RF performance and catering particularly for the needs of the CW operator. Over the years, th

2、eir top- end fl agship models have excelled, particularly when it comes to handling the challenging competitive environment of hectic contest or DX working. The Corsair and Omni series, culminating in the Omni-VI, were developed to provide an impeccable adjacent channel performance at the expense of

3、 broadband coverage, whereas other manufacturers had taken the broadband bells and whistles approach. Ten-Tec has now launched a new top-end radio pushing the state of the art to a higher plateau and combining the very best of both narrow band and broadband approaches. The new Orion is targeted as a

4、 home station radio with a 100W transmitter and two independent and fully-featured receivers. One receiver covers amateur bands only and is optimised for highest performance whereas the second receiver provides general coverage operation. Although the Orion has been available in the USA since early

5、in 2003, it has only recently received CE approval for sales within Europe. It is available in two versions, model 565 without auto ATU and model 565AT with internal auto ATU fi tted. BASIC FUNCTIONS The Orion is a large table-top sized 12V operated radio measuring 432W x 133H x 476Dmm and weighs ab

6、out 9.2kg. Although, from the amount of space inside the cabinet, the radio could have been made signifi cantly smaller, the larger format makes for an easy to use and clearly laid out panel with spacious buttons and good-sized controls. The main receiver and transmitter tune the 160m to 10m amateur

7、 bands (including the new 60m allocation) with a little overlap. The second or sub receiver tunes from 100kHz to 30MHz, although the sensitivity drops sharply below 1MHz making the receiver unusable at the lower frequencies. Modes covered are USB, LSB, CW (upper and lower sideband), AM, FM and FSK.

8、In common with the Jupiter transceiver see review in January 2004 RadCom - Ed, the fi rmware in the Orion may be upgraded from the Ten-Tec website so the transceiver need never be out of date. To support this approach, all controls on the front panel are software addressable, either push buttons or

9、rotary encoders. An array of 27 buttons around the LCD panel provides a high level of customisation and adjustment to suit different operating conditions and preferences. In some cases these are menu selectable and in other cases dependant on mode or other context but all are easy to access; never m

10、ore than a couple of button presses are needed. Up to fi ve user profi les may be stored and recalled at the press of a button. The rear panel carries an extensive array of interface connectors. There are two main antenna sockets and a receive-only antenna socket and these may be freely assigned to

11、any receiver / transmitter combination and stored against the band selection settings. There is a transverter output (+15dBm) with control, audio line output, auxiliary interfacing to PC sound cards and for FSK keying, RS-232 serial data port for computer control and fi rmware upgrading and extensiv

12、e support for both QSK and non-QSK linears. Control for two separate linears is provided, one associated with each antenna socket, and there are two separate band data output controllers. Linear control is very comprehensive, supporting hardware QSK keying loops and user control of sequencing delays

13、 and drop-back times. The Orion transceiver is provided with various plugs and leads including a full accessory jack lead and a microphone plug, although the microphone is an extra. The radio accommodates most microphone types including electret and Ten-Tec supplies hand and desk models. The radio i

14、s shipped with a 60-page operators manual which covers the set-up and operation of the controls. Circuit schematics are freely downloadable from the Ten-Tec technical support website together with various application notes, fi rmware upgrades and a software programmers guide. RADIO DESIGN Both recei

15、vers in the Orion use a triple superhet architecture. The main receiver covering just the amateur bands has IFs of 9MHz, 450kHz and 14kHz. Although the main channel selectivity is achieved by DSP at the 14kHz IF, a range of narrow roofi ng fi lters is selectable immediately following the fi rst mixe

16、r, which ensures the very best close-in dynamic range is achieved. Narrow preselection fi lters are used in the front end, a separate fi lter for each band, a switchable bipolar RF amplifi er and a quad of four JFETs for the fi rst mixer.The main receivers synthesiser uses a PLL operating in the 400

17、 - 500MHz region with a DDS driven reference. This is then divided down to the required fi rst mixer local oscillator frequency using high-speed dividers. This technique ensures very low close-in phase noise. The Sub receiver has IFs of 45MHz, 455kHz and 14kHz and uses circuitry similar to the Jupit

18、er. The receiver front end uses half octave switchable bandpass fi lters, a push- pull FET fi rst mixer and three parallel FETs in the RF amplifi er. The RF amplifi er is in circuit all the time but there is a switchable attenuator for very strong signal situations. Conversion to the second and thir

19、d IFs uses diode balanced mixers. The local oscillator drive for the fi rst mixer is derived from a single loop PLL tuning in 2.5kHz steps. The smaller tuning step sizes are 19www.rsgb.org RadCom June 2004 REVIEW transceiver “Truly awesome performance” says Peter Hart. Find out what precisely he was

20、 enthusing about in this, the first UK full technical review of Ten-Tecs long-awaiting new flagship model, the Orion. accommodated within the DSP. Hence the signals within the IFs move by up to 2.5kHz. Both receivers use identical DSP IF and back-end circuitry with identical features. 24-bit A/D con

21、verters are used to drive the two 32-bit fl oating point DSPs. AGC is applied mainly within the DSP but a separate second loop around the fi rst and second IFs comes into operation with strong signals. A built-in TCXO reference ensures good frequency accuracy and stability. The radio is constructed

22、around a sheet aluminium frame with four compartments top and bottom. The PA unit on the rear panel is fi tted with a heatsink but no fan. The radio runs suffi ciently cool under normal circumstances without a fan. The 4in high quality speaker in the case top is a much larger and more substantial un

23、it than is fi tted in most radios. DUAL RECEIVERS The radio is fi tted with two VFOs which may be assigned to either receiver or transmitter in any combination. The two 50mm diameter tuning knobs tune in a variety of step sizes from 1Hz to 100kHz at 62 or 250Hz steps per knob revolution and a button

24、 press increases the step size normally by a factor of 10 for rapid band navigation. Individual buttons select the amateur bands, but only for VFO A. Changing bands for VFO B is less convenient, involving swapping back and forth between A and B: this must surely be something for Ten-Tec to address i

25、n a future software upgrade. The band buttons scroll through four separate settings per band which can be useful if you operate regularly on several different modes. Both VFO frequencies are continuously displayed to 1Hz resolution and both can be entered directly from the band buttons which double

26、as a numeric keypad. 200 simple memories store frequency and mode associated with either of the VFOs and are easy to scroll and select. The main receiver is fi tted with a conventional analogue S- meter which indicates power on transmit but the Sub receiver is only provided with a small uncalibrated

27、 bargraph on the LCD panel. Most of the receiver functions can be set independently for the two receivers. This includes all the bandwidth and noise reduction facilities, RIT / XIT, RF gain, switchable input attenuator, squelch and AGC. The AGC has three preset settings of fast, medium and slow and

28、a fully programmable setting. In all cases the decay rate, hang time and threshold level are all adjustable. The threshold level is in effect an IF gain control and can be set as low as 0.37V. This shows potentially a very high gain in the signal path, suffi cient for AGC to act on noise alone. The

29、manual goes into great detail about the importance of setting the AGC parameters to enhance signal readability under extreme conditions. It is true that carefully tweaking the AGC parameters can noticeably enhance readability but I am sceptical about the reasons for this. It seems to me that the AGC

30、 can be made to introduce an element of non-linear signal slicing. The two receivers have separate audio gain controls and the audio outputs can be routed in a number of ways, either combined or kept separate to headphone or auxiliary outputs. One interesting feature is the binaural panoramic stereo

31、 feature when used with stereo headphones. This can be used with either receiver and helps in a CW pileup by presenting a spatial separation of signals within the audio passband. Diversity reception is also possible by setting the two receivers on the same frequency, eg using a common VFO, and havin

32、g separate antennas for the The Orions IF roofi ng fi lters. The LDG automatic ATU board. The LCD panel showing the spectrum display. Orion LCD panel showing the receiver menu. A plethora of sockets on the rear panel. 20June 2004 RadCom www.rsgb.org REVIEW selection of roofi ng fi lters at the 9MHz

33、IF and careful use of these fi lters is key to achieving the very best in adjacent channel performance. 20, 6, 2.4 and 1kHz bandwidth fi lters are provided as standard but additional fi lters of 1.8kHz, 500Hz and 250Hz bandwidth are available as options. All fi lters can be fi tted at the same time

34、and may be selected manually or automatically according to the setting of the bandwidth control. OTHER GOODIES Transmit features include variable output power (5 - 100W), VOX and a speech processor. The transmit fi lter bandwidth is adjustable from 900 to 3900Hz as well as for equalisation and low f

35、requency roll off allowing for different microphone characteristics, hi-fi audio, DX punch etc. On CW the rise and fall characteristic of the keying envelope is adjustable and a keyer is built in with adjustable weighting and speed range of 10 to 60WPM. Three memory stores are provided for both CW a

36、nd voice modes, easy to access via dedicated front panel buttons. The CW stores operate only in conjunction with the built-in keyer and seem to hold quite long messages but the manual does not cover their capacity. Two of the voice stores hold only 4.54 seconds maximum of audio and the third 28.1 se

37、conds but this third store is not saved on power down. The Orion also provides a spectrum sweep showing signals up to 36kHz on either side of the main receiver frequency. This is displayed on the lower part of the LCD and unlike other implementations of this feature it is continuous and does not int

38、errupt the operation of the receiver. The optional tuner fi tted into the Orion, which can be retrofi tted at a later date, is an LDG design using an LC ladder network with latching relays and with a particularly wide impedance matching range of 6 to 800 (up to 10:1 VSWR). There are no frequency sto

39、res so changing bands requires a retune but this only takes a second or two. MEASUREMENTS Measurements shown in the table were made with the review radio powered from a 13.8V supply and in most cases with the receiver bandwidth set to 2400Hz. Close-in dynamic range measurements were made with a 500H

40、z receive bandwidth. Receiver measurements relate to the main receiver unless sub-receiver is stated. The measured fi gures for third order intercept and dynamic range of the main receiver are very good but lower than the Orion published specifi cation. The sub-receiver, however, has a rather better

41、 performance than the specifi cation. Intermodulation within the test equipment is often the limitation in measuring the dynamic range of high performance radios. My measurement set-up has been carefully evaluated in this area and is capable of measuring receivers to at least +45dBm third order inte

42、rcept so I have a good degree of confi dence in the accuracy of the dynamic range results. The close-in results with the WEB SEARCH Ten-T Ten-Tec technical Ten-Tec Direct (UK) receivers. However, the effectiveness was marred by a slow beat (about 1Hz) when both receivers were set to the same frequen

43、cy. FILTERS Two DSP circuits provide identical and separately controllable fi ltering and noise reduction facilities for the two receivers. A front panel rotary control allows the channel bandwidth to be set from 100Hz to 6kHz in 10Hz steps. The upper and lower passband edges can also be individuall

44、y set and passband tuning allows the entire passband to be moved up or down in frequency. Two notch fi lters are provided. A manual notch with adjustable centre frequency and width is particularly effective and deep. An auto-notch for voice modes will track and notch out multiple carriers and is als

45、o very effective. Both notches operate at IF up-front of the DSP AGC circuitry and prevent the receiver AGC being captured by strong carriers. Adjustable DSP noise reduction is also provided and this can be effective in lowering background noise but does impart a synthetic sound to the audio. Adjust

46、able DSP noise blanking is also included and for the main receiver only an additional hardware noise blanker of the traditional type operating at the 9MHz IF. Adjustable audio equalisation is also provided for both receivers and transmitter. This can tailor the audio response by boosting or cutting

47、the bass and treble frequencies. The main receiver is fi tted with a TEN-TEC ORION MEASURED PERFORMANCE RECEIVER MEASUREMENTS SENSITIVITY SSB 10dBs+n:nINPUT FOR S9 FREQUENCYPREAMP INPREAMP OUTSUB RXPREAMP INPREAMP OUT 1.8MHz0.35V (-116dBm)0.90V (-108dBm)0.70V (-110dBm)25V100V 3.5MHz0.28V (-118dBm)0.

48、70V (-110dBm)0.40V (-115dBm)18V80V 5.4MHz0.25V (-119dBm)0.70V (-110dBm)0.45V (-114dBm)20V80V 7MHz0.32V (-117dBm)0.90V (-108dBm)0.35V (-116dBm)20V90V 10MHz0.35V (-116dBm)0.90V (-108dBm)0.45V (-114dBm)22V90V 14MHz0.28V (-118dBm)0.70V (-110dBm)0.40V (-115dBm)20V90V 18MHz0.32V (-117dBm)0.90V (-108dBm)0.

49、45V (-114dBm)25V100V 21MHz0.40V (-115dBm)1.3V (-105dBm)0.45V (-114dBm)32V125V 24MHz0.50V (-113dBm)1.6V (-103dBm)0.50V (-113dBm)28V125V 28MHz0.50V (-113dBm)1.8V (-102dBm)0.45V (-114dBm)22V100V AM sensitivity (28MHz): 3.5V for 10dBs+n:n at 30% mod depth FM sensitivity (28MHz): 1.8V for 12dB SINAD 3kHz pk deviation AGC attack time: 2 - 3ms AGC decay time: 250ms (fast), 500ms (med), 1.5s (slow) + variable Max audio at 10% distortion: 2.0W into 4 Inband intermodulation products: -35dB to -50dB S-READINGINPUT LEVEL SSB (7MHz)PREAMP INPREAMP OUT S30.8V3.2V S52.2V10V S77.0V28V S920V90V S9+20125V56