[Elecraft] Linear thoughts

[Bill Johnson]

Erik,  I sold my solid state THP2.5kfx for the same reason of not being able to lift it easily.  I bought the KPA500 to replace it.  The difference in power isn't all that much to me but I don't contest.  I can make up for the power difference easily by improving my antennas.  I am doing so now as weather permits.  At least I have a great amp with nearly as much on the receiver's S meter on the other end.

73,
Bill
K9YEQ

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Erik Basilier
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 2:27 PM
To: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] Linear thoughts

I recently sold my legal limit tube amp after a bit of a mental struggle.
The seller in me finally won after I realized that "if I can't lift it, I shouldn't own it". I was tempted to replace it with an ALS-1306, but I operate RTTY and in that mode the 1306 wouldn't be good for more output than a KPA500. Today I received my (new to me) KPA500. However, in a contest someone with 1500 Watts will have a big advantage over my 500 W, so the subject of higher power may soon come back to me. With the competion today in solid state linears, I have to believe that Electraft will in the future offer a bigger linear. To me it would be sad if the new Elecraft amplifier were a lot heavier than the KPA500. I am a fan of linear supplies, but I would have to hope that the bigger Elecraft amp would use a switching supply, located in a separate box. In the meantime, I am set up with two radios (both K3) and only one amp. For SO2R one would want an amp on each radio. With two KPA500's one would have two radios with 500 W each, and when that little extra is needed, one could run both amp's in parallel from a single radio. Liftability would be very good! I know that is not a new idea, but implementing it seems a little messy. Might Elecraft consider offering special cabling and firmware to allow operation with the two amp's in parallel be as slick as running the single amp? Even slicker would be the ability to go back to one amp per radio, without any change in cabling. 

 

73,

Erik K7TV

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