Down the Rabbit Hole
I was having a lot of fun with the restored Ten Tec Omni (series C), but like all of the older Ten Tec radios, the Permeability Tuned Oscillator (PTO), aka VFO, left a little to be desired. Back in the day, when I bought my first Ten Tec, these PTOs were considered very good — but time marches on and we’ve gotten used to smoother and more stable VFOs. An upgrade would be nice.
In part one of this restoration, we tackled the Ten Tec Omni C’s two most glaring problems: garbled signals on receive and blowing fuses when the radio was switched to the 30-Meter band. I could now receive and transmit signals in almost all the band switch positions, albeit with varying sensitivity and power output. It had been quite a chase so far, and the remaining repairs would prove equally challenging.
I purchased a Ten Tec Omni Series C transceiver about a year ago for my collection. At the time, I was in the middle of several other projects, and didn’t get to it until just recently. I had been using an Omni D, but it still needs work and I thought the “C” would be a nice upgrade.