[Elecraft] KPA500 - just 500 watts?

[Don Wilhelm]

  QRP, 100 watts, or QRO at 500 watts+  -- they all have their place.  
If one is operating portable with batteries on a mountain hike, there is 
no other reasonable choice than QRP, and sometimes antennas are 
compromise for that situation too, but many do enjoy making a bunch of 
contacts in that environment.

100 watts (well somewhere between 50 and 100) is normal for me at the 
home station.  I will drop to 5 watts if operating near the QRP 
"watering holes" just so I don't cover up other low power stations, but 
for most causal QSOs, I run between 50 and 100 watts.

I will have an amplifier on the air someday (I have done 55 years of 
hamming without one), but it will be used when conditions warrant it.  
Yes, contests often warrant it, and when trying for that elusive DX in a 
pileup.  However, I will continue to run near the 100 watt level most of 
the time.  Some of the guys I talk to on 80 meter SSB tend to razz me 
about not running more power, but they can hear me, so why run more - if 
I am only S-7 on their meter, but perfectly Q5 copy, why should I run up 
the electric bill just because they are running the legal limit and 
bragging about their S-9+60 reports.  I just don't see the point.  Oh 
yes, some of these guys are running ESSB too, but I prefer to limit my 
bandwidth.  Just because it can be done is not a valid reason to do it IMHO.

"To everything Turn, Turn, Turn ---  To every thing there is a season, 
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:" - based on the Book of 
Ecclesiastes and put to music by Pete Seegar in 1959.

73,
Don W3FPR