I just got the word back on my once wonderful Ten-Tec Omni VI amateur radio transceiver. It is a total un-repairable loss. <sniff> It was a wonderful radio for fifteen years. It was totally first class back then and still very much state of the art today, but not now, just fried silicon.
Ten-Tec does make the next version in the series called the Omni VII. That design is about five years old. It loses some feature of the VI but gains a fancy front video panel and a few new features. The top of the line Ten-Tec is now called the Orion II and is about $1.5K pricier. That puts it at the same dollar value as the original Omni VI from 15 years ago and is actually more the Omni VI plus equal.
Even to me that sounds like a hard sell since there is still a Ten-Tec radio series called the Omni. The Omni VII is a great radio so it looks like it will be my replacement. My old Omni had all the extra’s with added filters and a factory upgrade to the Omni VI plus version. So now I need Ten-Tec to give me a quote on the full replacement with the Omni VII.
In communication ability there will be little to no difference between what I had and what will be the replacement. I’d rather I didn’t have to replace it at all.