[Elecraft] Ten Tec never sounded so good!

[Tom W8JI]

<< On SSB it isn't so much the folks on ESSB, although we 
have a few of those
here also unfortunately, but rather the poorly adjusted 1KW 
plus amplifierrs
and badly adjusted audio that causes me to screw up my nose 
and do a quick
QSY..(:-))>>

If we are every going to fix things we need to honestly 
discuss the real problems.

I have been doing a survey of ops on 20 and 40 meters with 
very bad signals, and nearly all the nasty signals were not 
high power. Most, after I broke in for a friendly chat, we 
running small amps and just mistuning or overdriving them. 
A significant number had "peaked" their radios up and were 
running a bit more output from a 100 watt radio. As a matter 
of fact a contestor who brought his FT1000MP's to me had his 
100 watt radios screwed up to 130-140 watts, so this may be 
a more common practice then we think. I lowered his radios 
to 100 watts, and after a while when the radios came back 
for another update they were back up to 130-140 watts again. 
At that power level the radios had IM3 in the -20 dB PEP 
range, and products out to the 17th order were still strong.

For all those intent on boosting low power radios with a 
cheap external PA, you can see measurements here:
http://www.w8ji.com/rm_hla-150_test.htm

The very best the RM Italy amp gets on *any band at any 
power* is about like a FT1000MP on the very WORSE band for 
the MP.

There is no convincing people that our 100 watt radios at 
100 watts are barely acceptable as is, and that all these 
little tricks that give another 1-2 dB more power can 
increase splatter 15 dB or more. Worse yet, those cheap 
illegal amplifiers that make 10-watt radios into 100 watters 
are going to be our undoing.

73 Tom