I just read the following announcement about Ten Tec in which I thought all
of you would be interested. I am thinking this might be a good time to
approach Ten Tec again about incorporating speech back into their rigs, much
like Kenwood. Ten Tec rigs have always been excellent transceivers, but not
very accessible. I owned a Paragon several years ago, and it had some spoken
buttons and spoken frequency output, but it was still not nearly as
accessible as the Kenwood rigs. - Ron, K8HSY

 

*********

Ten Tec: 2016 and Beyond 

 6 January 2016 | by Matt W1MST  |  Share |  Tweet |  Leave a Comment (0) 

tentec-omni

 

Although there had been much speculation that Dishtronix was the mystery
buyer of Ten Tec, we got confirmation in the last couple of days. 

 

I wrote to Mike Dishop of Dishtronix, Ten Tec's new owner, to ask him for
more information about what we can expect from Ten Tec going forward. Here
is his response:

 

Although Ten Tec has changed hands several times in the last couple of
years, I would like to state that Ten Tec has changed hands for the last
time in the foreseeable future. Dishtronix has been continuously operating
for 17 years, is financially stable and will continue managing in a manner
that promotes and maintains financial stability. My vision is strictly long
term. I have no plans to leave this business and will continue to operate
Ten Tec as long as I am physically able to do so. I believe the Ten Tec
transceivers to be some of the best transceivers available at any price and
personally have been operating an Orion II until the first change of
ownership. Everyone who uses a piece of equipment long enough, develops a
personal wish list of things they would change or improve. I feel extremely
fortunate to now be in the position where I can use my skills and expertise
from more than forty years of ham radio and SWLing to implement changes
which I hope will make fantastic products even better.

 

Unfortunately I have had to make some tough decisions which were made for
the long term health and viability of the company. The Ten Tec team is the
nicest bunch of people you could hope to work with and have overall reacted
positively to the changes. Some team members have chosen to pursue
retirement or other opportunities but the core competency remains. We are
extremely fortunate to have retained former engineering manager John Henry
on a consulting basis and I must give him the greatest credit. I certainly
would not take on this project without him and the other team members like
Boyd Lichlyter and Patty Gann. Ten Tec is like a big family, and I do not
view this as me acquiring Ten Tec but more like me joining an extended
family of talented and skilled people. I hope anyone reading this who is in
the market for a new radio will help me support this great group by at least
trying one of their radios. Of the present production the Eagle is my
favorite for having the best sound out of the box, and that is what my
personal preference is always based on - good sound. My all-time favorite is
of course the Orion II so an Orion III is on my personal wish list for the
future. There are numerous Ten Tec user nets on the air and it is my
intention so support them by posting the time and frequency schedules on the
website. If I can accomplish one thing at Ten Tec it will be to be more
customer-centric. I want to build the radios that you the customer wants! I
am looking for ways to reliably engage with our customers so we can do that,
and I think factory support of the nets is one way to start.

 

The Ten Tec team is working on production improvements to our facility and
business. We are fully occupied with our commercial business at this time.
When I have capacity the next step is to run the first batch of Omni 7+
which is the Omni 7 with some minor cosmetic changes and improvements such
as a flat metal front for improved shielding. Following this we are
releasing the Super Eagle which brings into the Eagle most of the DSP
features found on the Orion II and is the first step on the path to the
Orion III. This is different hardware from existing product so it is not a
firmware upgrade. There are no firm dates or guarantees for when these
things will occur.

 

The blow out sale prices are over and any outstanding orders at those prices
are terminated The prices will be the regular list price. Those prices were
previous owners intent to liquidate all inventory and will never be
repeated.

 

I am pleased to state that we have completed some firmware updates which
will be posted on the new Ten Tec website once it is up and running to
entice people to visit the site.

 

Dishtronix has other new products under development as well. The DX2400MKII
replaces the DX2400L1 legal limit + solid state amplifier and should be
unveiled at Hamvention, to mention just one. We are close to beginning
production of our Emtron DX2/3-SPd tetrode amplifiers which will also be
shown at Hamvention. Further, there are some other exciting things happening
which we may announce in the near future.

 

There has been some speculation if Ten Tec will move to Ohio. I do not plan
to move anything at this time from the Sevierville - Knoxville area, but we
may move within that area.

 

If I could ask the ham community to do one thing, it would be to please be
patient with us. Things like this take time.

 

Dr. Ronald E. Milliman

Retired Professor of Marketing