[ARC5] Powering a GP-7 Without Going Deaf

[Christopher Bowne]

I emailed Jack, WA7DIA to ask him how he is powering his GP-7, which he had on the Old Milrad CW net a few weeks ago. Here is how he has been doing it from his response;

Yes, I had the GP-7 on a couple weeks ago. I have run it on an inverter, a PE-206
which has an 80V output, and stepping it up with a 400 cycle variac. It worked,
but that is all I could say about it. It is loud, but this particular unit doesn't have
the scream factor that everyone complains about. It sounds more like a large
leaf blower, tremendous wind noise. The voltage regulation wasn't all that
great with this setup either, so CW was very chirpy.

What I'm using now is an AC power source made by Behlman, an ACM-1000.
All solid state and capable of 45-2500 cycles at 1000VA. It runs the GP-7
nice and quietly. Mike Hanz told me to keep an eye out for one, and when
one showed up on eBay at a reasonable price, I grabbed it. Actually two
of them, good thing I did, as I had to swap parts around to make one good unit.
Voltage is nice and stable, which makes CW sound good. Just the normal amount of chirp you would expect from an MOPA transmitter.

BTW the net meets on 3570 every Sunday night at 2100 Eastern time.  Ted W3PWW is NCS.  Come chirp with us!

Chris AJ1G Stonington CT