Frankly, I think you're taking the wrong approach.  Your QRZ bio says you're really interested in working DX.  If that's still true, forget the all-band approach for now, and build an antenna that will allow you to work one of the best DX bands - 20 meters.  You can build a simple 1/4 wavelength vertical with stuff you can buy at Home Depot for not much money.  Take the time to learn which bands are best for DX at the times you'll be able to get on the air.  Both 160 and 6 meters are a bad idea for a beginning DXer and 80 meters isn't much better.  I suggest concentrating on bands where you'll be able to work DX just about any day of the year and that is most likely 40 and 20 meters.  Being able to transmit on 160 through 6 isn't of any advantage unless you're going to chase the DX Challenge award from day one.

73, Floyd - K8AC

I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.  Did you try cleaning it?  Use De-Oxit on the contacts and work the switch back and forth.  I've worked on a few TR7s and have never seen a bad mode switch.

73, Floyd - K8AC

If you have a spare crystal, it might be interesting to change the frequency slightly by using some old techniques.  You can move the crystal down in frequency by rubbing a #2 lead pencil over one or both surfaces.  And, you can move one up in frequency by grinding it a bit.  We used to use a paste of Ajax cleanser and water on a flat piece of glass.  With some experience, you can hone in on an exact frequency.

The last three that sold on eBay were in the range of $442 to $595.  Unless yours is in mint condition, I'd expect it to bring a price in that range.  While it was certainly an interesting receiver, it was not a good performer - ultimate filter attenuation was not good and IMD was a problem on a band full of strong signals (Field Day and SS for example).  Stu Meyer, W2GHK (SK), wrote an article sometime in the early 1970s describing a modification to the HQ-215 that added 160 meters to the receiver.  I recall paying $225 for a mint unit around 1971 and selling it for $250 a year or so later (with the 160 mod installed).

73, Floyd - K8AC

Just for the record, a hybrid splitter (passive device) is not exactly lossless.  Splitting the signal between two receivers results in an approximate 3 dB reduction in the signal going to each receiver.  Clifton Laboratories makes a nice little hybrid splitter (http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/z10050a_3_db_hybrid.htm) with something like 30 dB of port isolation.  I've assembled a couple of these and they work very well.  Some transceivers with two receivers (Tentec Orion II for example) use a hybrid splitter and when you activate the second receiver on the same antenna as the first, you'll see a 3 dB reduction in signal.  I've never seen a case where that made any difference in the ability to receive a weak signal on the HF bands. 

Interesting theory about the color of the lettering, but - I've been using tubes for the past 50+ years, many of them RCA, and those that had the orange lettering still do and those that had grey lettering out of the box still do.  Some of the tubes have been in service for decades.  It may be that some specific tubes had labeling that would change when heated, but none that I ever ran into.

73, K8AC

Most of the reviews here and elsewhere aren't worth a lot.  It's human nature to have nothing but good to say about a rig you just popped $7,000 for.  On those rare occasions when I'm looking for opinions on a purchase, I read only the negative reviews here and look for common threads.  If you find none, that doesn't mean there are no major flaws with the unit.  But, if you find multiple people complaining about the same thing(s), there's likely some substance to the complaints.  Then the question becomes: Will that problem affect me given my operating habits?  You may not care about problems with CW keying if you never operate CW.

73, K8AC

The firmware download from Tentec includes the software to communicate with the Orion for the firmware update.  Having struggled through this quite a while back, it's pretty clear that there's something not quite right in the Tentec software that does the communications, but they deny that.  I have a number of real serial ports on my PC and can communicate with the Orion II over any of those from any other software.  But, the Tentec update software will work only with the first port on the PC (com 1 in this case).  There has been a lot of discussion about such problems on the Orion Yahoo group and there used to be a utility accessible in the Files section there that supposedly checks the serial ports.  In my case, that checked out OK, but the Tentec software still couldn't access the ports.  I assume that you're setting up the Orion to properly accept the firmware download.  If you don't do that, you may also get a message indicating a problem with the port. 

73, K8AC

I've run my Orion II with both a USB/serial converter and a real serial port with a number of PC programs (DXLab, N1MM, N4PY, etc.) without problem.  The only time I've run into a problem was with the Tentec supplied firmware upgrade program and that would function properly on my PC only with a real serial port.

Have to agree with Dale on that.  I owned a K3 and just didn't like the compact physical design of the unit and replaced it with an FTDX-5000.  Typical of Yaesu rigs in recent years, it had some serious problems when sending CW (variable length dits, and a couple of other things).  After some time, Yaesu offered a fix but that required you to pay shipping both ways to the west coast.  One fellow who had Yaesu fix his 5000 then reported that you could no longer operate QSK above 20 wpm after the fix was applied.  If you're considering the Yaesu 3000, and will ever operate CW with it, I'd suggest that you first listen to the 3000's CW signal on a separate receiver (do NOT trust what you hear in the sidetone) and make sure the keying is what it should be.  That's best seen on a scope or capture of the monitor receiver audio so that you can examine spacing and duration of code elements with an audio file editor. 

On the other hand, an early problem I experienced with the K3 resulted in them sending me a replacement card which fixed the problem at very little cost to me.  Same with my current Tentec transceiver. 

And here's a very important reason.  Before that, just because someone has operated for some number of decades and never had a lightning problem means absolutely nothing.  I operated for 40 years and pretty much disregarded grounding issues and then one day, a tree in my backyard was struck.  Damage to the station gear 150 feet away was $3,500.  Three years later, the same tree was struck again and this time the damage was about $200, and I attribute the difference to the attention I paid to grounding after the first strike. 

Lightning doesn't have to strike your antennas or your house to do extensive damage to your equipment.  I think of a lightning bolt being similar to a freight train - there's little you can hope to do to change its direction and to be sure if a bolt hits your station directly, it's all over.  But, tremendous damage can be done by a nearby strike that doesn't hit your antennas at all.  When a bolt hits a tree, your tower, etc., extremely high currents flow through the earth in all directions and will induce voltages in any metal in the path of the currents.  That might be a water pipe, underground telephone line, underground cable TV coax, etc.  In the case of my second strike, a significant voltage was induced in the underground telephone line and the wires were blown off the telco termination on the outside of the house.  The damage to the station that time was limited to things that were connected to the phone line.  Everything was connected to a ground buss on the rear of the operating table, but there was no protection installed on the phone line inside the station.  The telco box was properly grounded to the electrical panel ground.  The purpose of the ground buss is to equalize the voltages that appear on the cabinets of the gear.  If it weren't there, various pieces of gear might be at different potentials depending upon how they're connected to conductors coming in from outside.  That potential difference (many thousands of volts) will be resolved by an arc and a high current flow (enough to blow the traces off of a circuit board).  It's interesting to think that the ground on electrical outlets and a single point ground outside will result in no potential inside at the equipment, but that's not the case.

If you're single point ground is 50 feet away from the station equipment, you may still see a significant voltage at the  equipment depending on how your cables are routed.  For example, in this part of the world, almost all houses have a dirt crawlspace and cables are often left lying on the ground there.  A good opportunity to have a voltage induced in the cables with a high current and steep wavefront traveling through the soil. 

Unless your single point ground is right there at the electrical panel (and I'll bet most aren't), then you WILL have a potential difference between the ground on your antenna or control cables and the electrical outlet ground.  Of course, you might be one of the lucky ones who never has a strike nearby (and I hope you are).  I was successful in ignoring the problem for 40 years, but I wouldn't risk doing that again. 

A few transceivers, the TenTec Orion II being one, provide 3 simple equalizers for both receivers and the transmitter.  It's a menu-adjustable thing and makes a substantial difference on receive.  The adjustment allows you to compensate for lack of low frequency response in small speakers, hearing problems or just to achieve the sound you prefer - full bodied, or sharp. 

There used to be a website run by a VE that dealt with all things FT-1000MP Mk V.  I used to own one and my memory of it is fading, but I believe that one potential source of the noise is the DC/DC converter that drives the front panel display.  Is your display as bright as it should be?  If not, that's a pretty good indicator of a problem in that area.  Even when working correctly, the display on the earlier units might be dim and there was an article regarding a fix involving shortening the high voltage leads from the DC converter to the display.  That mod corrected the problem for me.

73, Floyd - K8AC

Well, back in my Novice days (1959-60), most of the Novices were found on 40M CW and you learned that you could work all the states on that band, but you had to learn how the propagation changed with time of day.  You can work DX stations in Asia from the southeast USA if you pay attention to the grey line at the right time of year.  Novices could also work 15M CW and that was where the real DX was to be had, but what we really wanted was that General ticket so we could chase DX on 20M.  All things considered, if I was limited to a single band operation I'd likely choose 20M for the DX possibilities (even at sunspot minimums).  On the other hand, 40M offers access to everywhere at one time or another and would be the best single band if DXing were not your primary concern. 

73, Floyd - K8AC

Can't help with the Thunderbolt II info, but thanks for posting this question.  I looked for an Avenger for many years, but never ran across one.  I downloaded the manual from mods.dk and found the Thunderbolt II photo and info - very interesting.  The Avenger manual reminds me of a Heathkit manual from the same period - full of explanations on how the circuits function and troubleshooting info (it was assumed that you were going to try and fix it yourself!).  I was a bit surprised on the Avenger to see that they really didn't accommodate CW operation very well - no narrow filter option and the CW offset was apparently fixed at 1 KHz.  I believe some of the Collins S-Line gear used a similar CW offset, making transceive operation on CW somewhat cumbersome.  Anyway, best of luck in locating a Thunderbolt II.  That and the Avenger would indeed be a one-of-a-kind station.

73, Floyd - K8AC