[Milsurplus] AN/GRC-9

[WF2U]

Yes, I heard that the AM-66 is not a great piece of engineering,
nevertheless it'd have been interesting to have one as an accessory.
The amplifier I use and like very much is the German-made LV80/GRC-9. Now
that's a neat and elegant piece of equipment!
It gives the spec'd 80 W output on CW, and I measured 35 W output on AM.
It's much smaller than the AM-66.
Using it makes the GRC-9 quite usable, even when conditions are not
conducive to QRP ops...

73, Meir WF2U
Landrum, SC


> -----Original Message-----
> From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Richard Brunner
> Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 4:29 PM
> Cc: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] AN/GRC-9
>
>
>
>
> wf2u at starband.net wrote:
> .... They also had the French-made AM-66/GRC-9 100 W
> > amplifier, which I didn't buy at the time, as I wanted a
> US-issued and not
> > NATO specific setup. Too bad, because there are no AM-66 amps anywhere
> > except in Europe now. I wonder who bought them up from Fair.
>
> Have no regrets.  I had one and gladly sold it.  It uses three 2E22's in
> parallel at 700 volts, suppressor modulated for AM, and has several
> inexcusable serious design flaws.  When you switch from CW to AM the
> output goes down maybe 10% instead of 75% because the suppressor voltage
> for AM is much too high, -40 volts (same as the GRC-9) instead of about
> -100 volts.  The resulting modulation is mostly downward, but doesn't
> sound too bad in a receiver. I also believe biasing in the modulator was
> strange.  There is also significant attenuation of signals through the
> amplifier to the receiver.  I think they knowingly did all that to meet
> design criteria, engineering be damned.
>
> Richard Brunner, AA1P
> ______________________________________________________________
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>