Omni VI Option 3 Upgrade vs Omni VI Plus

From the Ten-Tec Reflector June 28, 1999

Wow, what a lot of mail generated by the Omni-VI/VI Plus discussion over the weekend. A few brief notes from the factory, I'm not intending to stir this up again. I'm posting this because I know it will be archived and someone off in the future may find it useful when considering the purchase of a used radio.

  1. We intentionally did not put Omni-VI Plus front panels on radios that were factory upgraded to prevent any confusion over whether or not it was a production line Omni-VI Plus.
  2. That being said, we (at Ten-Tec) make no distinction between a upgraded radio and a production line Omni-VI Plus. We sell them used at the same price, same trade-in price. (My own personal rig is a 5 year old Omni-VI that has been upgraded. If I thought I was missing something by not having a production line VI Plus I would have traded it and taken a VI Plus home).
  3. The back panels are different. The original Omni back panel reads "OMNI VI MODEL 563 AMATEUR RADIO TRANSCEIVER". The Omni-VI Plus reads "OMNI-VI PLUS 564 AMATEUR RADIO TRANSCEIVER". There will be a sticker by the serial number indicating it has been factory upgraded. There were 2 different factory upgrades. The first was "option 2", which was merely installation of the DSP and LOGIC chips for the Omni-VI Plus, and rearrangement of a couple of buttons on the front panel. The "Omni VI Plus upgrade" is "option 3". The appropriate sticker will be on the back panel. Another easy way to tell one from the other is the filter buttons above the main tuning knob. On an option 3 radio they read "1.8 500 250 N-1 N-2" - on an option 2 radio they read "2.4 1.8 .50 .25 NAR".
  4. There also was an "option 1"; installation of the DSP and LOGIC chips from the Omni-VI Plus into an original Omni-VI, and stickers to cover three buttons on the front panel. This was user installable.
  5. The print fonts on the buttons for the Omni-VI and Omni-VI Plus are slightly different. It's subtle, but if you have an original VI and a VI Plus next to each other you'll see a slight difference in the font. Reason: We had simply worn out the original button screens right around the time we changed models. New rig, new font.
  6. Unfortunately, I have spoken with a couple of people over the last two years that bought Omni's that either were not upgraded at all, or didn't have the full option 3 upgrade and the rigs were represented as being an "Omni-VI Plus". My advice, as always, would be to ask the seller some questions. If you're *really* not sure, just call us at the factory and we'll tell you what questions you should be asking, always happy to do that.

73,

Scott Robbins, W4PA

Amateur Radio Product Manager


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