[Elecraft] KW Amp Prices

[Jim Brown]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:45:50 -0700, Vic Rosenthal wrote:

>Suppose you have a couple of hundred watts and you are trying to work DX on 160 
>meters.  There will be lots of times that you call a station and he simply 
>doesn't hear you.  If you are just below the noise level at his location, a 
>couple of DB may put you just over, and you will be heard.  You can work a lot 
>of DX with low power, but that doesn't mean that there's no value in higher 
power.

Exactly. I live in the middle of Chicago, where I have rather limited antennas 
AND a high noise level. I can work 160 with 100 watts, and have worked all but 
two of the lower 48 with 100 watts), but the extra 10 dB provided by a Titan amp 
that I bought last summer increased my score in the ARRL 160 test significantly, 
and made it a lot more fun. The only way I could improve my antenna system here 
is to buy the houses on both sides of mine and put up towers to hold an antenna. 
Ya got an extra $2 Million laying around? 

In February, I worked a 160 contest from W6BX with 100 watts and a nice antenna. 
There, I worked 47 states in a weekend, as well as JA and D4B. But I could work a 
guy in RI that I could hear quite well, simply because he had the same sort of 
high noise level that I have at nome. Another 6-10 dB would have made it for us. 

Another point. When I try to work DX on 80 or 40 with 100 watts, we exchange 
signal reports and maybe our names, and we're done -- the copy is too rough to do 
more. When I do it with the Titan on-line, the guy on the other end wants to 
chat, and we can get to know each other. 

I am confident that whatever prices Wayne and Eric establish for their amps will 
be fair, and when I have time, I will build one or both. The cost of our kits 
includes far more than the parts -- good engineering takes time, the designs and 
circuit layouts must be built and tested, manuals must be written, parts must be 
chosen with an eye toward longevity, we want tech support, and 20 years from now 
we would like to be able to fix the amp when something goes wrong. 

Ten Tec has built some pretty decent amplfiers at fair prices, and I own three of 
them. 20 years later, the amps are still in fine shape and good values, but try 
to find replacement tubes or output transistors for some of them. Those decisions 
alone take time, a lot of judgement, and a well-polished crystal ball. And you 
never know when a major manufacturer is going to cut your knees out from 
underneath you (like Motorola and Eimac both did to Ten Tec). 

Don't get me wrong -- QRP is fun, and I enjoy it. But it is not the ONLY way to 
enjoy ham radio. And there is a LOT more to the cost of a sophisticated product 
like what we buy from Elecraft than meets the eye. 



Jim Brown  K9YC