[Elecraft] ALC and External Power Amplifiers (K2)

[Vic Rosenthal]

Harry Yingst wrote:
> I've been looking through the K2 & KPA100 manuals trying to find the
> ALC takeoff point for use with an external power amplifier.
> 
> Is there one?

There isn't one, but it would be useful.  Although activation of ALC on 
a regular basis is not a good idea (since it has a finite attack time, 
it can't prevent driving an amplifier into nonlinearity, at least for 
short periods), it can function as a safety feature.  For example I've 
just installed an Alpha 86.  It produces 1 KW output with about 35 watts 
of drive (I haven't dared to run the full 1500 watts for fear of 
damaging antenna components, etc.).  I can only shudder to think about 
what might happen if I forgot to turn down the power control on my K2 
and hit it with 100 watts!

Vic K2VCO