Ten Tec has recently dropped their top of the line Orion 1 and 2 series, plus their Jupiter transceiver from the ham radio market. According to Ten Tec, these products were dropped due to parts availability, that is a nice smoke screen, but I feel there are other reasons for this cutback. We have also noticed that Ten Tec dropped all ads in QST, not a good sign in the economic world.
Most businesses start dropping product lines if they are not successful in sales, or the product does not meet the projected expectations. It takes money for research and development and with a high end product it may take some time before the sales pick up on the designed product.
I have heard some pros and cons about the Orion and Jupiter, some praise them and others do hot have a high opinion. To be honest I am not a Ten Tec fan, two rigs namely the Paragon and the Omni 5 were disappointments and I could not unload the Paragon fast enough. The Omni 5 was not mine, but had a lot of problems and to me was not a good rig.
I read one complaint about Ten Tec radios not have eight pin connectors for their Mike input and called that so Yesterday. To be honest this is a minor detail, those other pins are for up and down frequency control for your Mic. I quite frankly do not use this feature on my Mic an MC 60 Kenwood hooked to my two Yaesu rigs. I only changed the actual Mic connections and was not concerned about anything else other the PTT.
To me this is so minor that it is hardly worth worrying about, so let’s put it to rest.
I have felt over the years that Ten Tec has lagged behind in technology development in comparison to the big three, Kenwood, Icom and Yaesu. Perhaps, others have felt this way, yet we have die hard Ten Tec owners who will not part with their radios.
As I mentioned the Paragon I had produced nothing but continued problems over a two year period, the first chance I got, it was gone.
One has to ask himself a real pointed question, if the Orion 1 and 2 plus the Jupiter need service, they go back to Ten Tec, service determines it is a part that is not available, then what? Well, you have a nice paper weight.
I suspect that these two models will drop dramatically in market price and trade in values will also drop, not a good sign. I could be wrong, but this is the normal trend.
So those with these rigs, well hope they continue to run for many years without major problems, I suspect some may have unloaded these rigs for something from the Big three. We hope that Ten Tec recovers from the economic fall out, but to me the future looks rather bleak.
Proceed with caution, hopefully you will not lose good money on these rigs, but one never knows how the market goes?
