[Elecraft] Pwr<>Antenna

[Vic Rosenthal]

Paul Gates wrote:

> I may be missing something but I had 2 homebrew amps running 813s, another 
> one running 4-572B's by Dentron and recently since 1997 had a Ameritron 
> AL80B till 2004. I sold all amps because I am satisfied with 100 watts from 
> the Icom 706 and my QRP rigs. BUT, my point is I never noticed any increase 
> in my utility bills!

I sent the following in response to the original mention of power costs, 
but forgot to forward it to the list:

EricJ wrote:

 > My electric bill came today and it worked out to 11.7 cents/kwh.

Let's say you have a 1.5KW amplifier.  Overall efficiency might be 50%, 
so it draws 3KW key down.  Now let's say you operate 2 hours a day, 5 
days a week.  During that time, you QSO 50% of the time.  During a QSO, 
you transmit 50% of the time and listen 50% of the time.  You use CW, so 
your duty cycle is 50%.  This will cost you 3KW * 10h * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 
= 3.75KWH, or, at the specified rate, about 48 cents a week, or $25 a 
year if you always use the amplifier and don't take a vacation. SSB will 
be cheaper.

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco