[Elecraft] OT: ICE still functioning?

[Jim Brown]

On 4/28/2011 7:44 AM, dave wrote:
> It appears that I.C.E. may indeed be kaput.
  There are three designs of bandpass filters for the ham bands.  ICE, 
Dunestar, and W3NQN filters (the NQN filters are sold by Array 
Solutions). All are designed for use between the transceiver and either 
a power amp or matched antenna.

Last week, there was a thread on the NCCC reflector about bandpass 
filters.There was general agreement  that while ICE filters "work," they 
are rather prone to fail at their rated 100W power levels, and everyone 
who said they owned them reported failures.  I've had two such failures 
in the two years that I've owned two of them. Quality control is also 
poor -- of four single-band filters and two 419's that I bought, all 
arrived out of alignment. They were repaired at no cost, but I had to 
pay shipping to Indianapolis, and was without them while they were being 
repaired.  My assessment is that they will fail if run at 100 watts, but 
they are less likely to fail at the 30-50W levels required to drive a 
power amp.

A west coast company, Dunestar, has been making bandpass filters for at 
least a decade, and several NCCC  members have owned and used them for a 
while. All reports on Dunestar filters have been positive, and there 
were no reports of failures.

http://www.dunestar.com/filters.htm

Array Solutions sells bandpass filters designed by W3NQN, and described 
in a QST article quite a few years ago. It isn't clear who builds them, 
but I'd guess it's Array Solutions. They also sell switching systems for 
these filters.

In terms of filtering performance, the W3NQN filters are quite superior, 
followed by Dunestar and then ICE.

My two ICE 419s will be for sale as soon as I can replace them.

73, Jim K9YC