Omni 6+ Random Tips & Comments
- Taken as a whole package, the Ten-Tec Omni 6+ is certainly one of the finest (most enjoyable) hf rigs of all time. It's this author's personal all-time favorite hf xcvr.
- By "finest", I don't necessarily mean best performing. Numerous modern rigs outperform the Omni 6+, but not by much.
- The front panel is unquestionably (to me) the best ever in terms of ergonomics, beauty, and coolness
- I also don't mean to say the Omni 6+ isn't without faults - it has many, but they're easy to live with. The worst of these faults on cw receive is digital noise/artifacts in the receive audio. "LP" helps, but the digital noise is always audible in the stock Omni 6+. The solution to this is to apply 1KHz low pass audio filtering at the headphones output. The worst of these faults on ssb receive is total loss of low frequency receive audio due to dsp high pass filtering. The solution to this is to bypass DSP in ssb receive and apply 3KHz low pass audio filtering at the headphones output. The notch filter circuit should also be bypassed because it injects a constant 5KHz tone into the receive audio. I discuss this mod on the rxaudio page.
- The Corsair II bests the Omni 6+ in terms of QSK, but the Omni 6+ is VERY good. Ten-Tec struggled with the Orion to approach the Omni 6+ level of performance which was simply impossible to do with the Orion's architecture. The Orion did end up being quite good though. With the flexibility of FAST/SLOW QSK and DLY settings, pleasant sidetone, and smooth audio transitions - the Omni 6+ is top of the cw game.
- The Ten-Tec ssb filters should really be swapped out for Inrads - at 15+ years old, the old-style Ten-Tec filters don't seem to hold their specs as well as the Inrads do; the Ten-Tec cw filters seem to hold up better but still need to be checked and not taken for granted.
- Because the 9MHz passband center is fixed, the only 9MHz ssb filter I recommend using is the Inrad 2800Hz filter (along with dsp bypass mod). A 2400Hz filter is fine in the 9MHz IF without the dsp bypass mod. Do all narrower ssb filtering in the 6.3MHz IF, where you can adjust the passband via PBT.
- The quality of the received cw tone is second to none and has a seductive, melodic (euphonic?), sweet sound in your ears, especially when heard through Sennheiser HD-580 headphones.
- For smooth cw QSK audio, pull connector 52 on the IF/AF board as described on the cw-keying page.
- Treat your Omni 6+ to a $10 trim ring from the factory - your index finger will appreciate it
page revision: 21, last edited: 08 Aug 2022 16:20