[NLRS] Wanted - RF Concepts Amplifiers and/or Website

[John P. Toscano]

"Steven H Sawyers (na0ia)" wrote:
 
> Have been working on adding power to the rover. I have a 170 Watt RF
> Concepts 2 meter amp. Seems to work nice - model is 2-417.
> 
> I would like to get a 222 and 432 amp of similar power to work with the
> 736R and have the pre-amps it so badly needs. Model numbers seem to be a
> little confusing. Can anyone explain the model numbering that RF Concepts
> uses, and what models are available?.

The first digit (before the dash) is the band indicator.
1 = 6 meters
2 = 2 meters
3 = 135 cm (222-225 MHz)
4 = 70 cm

The second digit, immediately to the right of the dash, indicates
the amount of power needed to drive the amp.

The 3rd and 4th digits indicate the maximum power output (multiply
by 10 to get the actual output).

I have three of them:
  2-117 -> 2 = 2 meters, 1 = 10 watts in, 17 = 170 watts out
  3-211 -> 3 = 135 cm,   2 =  2 watts in, 11 = 110 watts out
  4-310 -> 4 = 70 cm,    3 = 30 watts in, 10 = 100 watts out

Yours:
  2-417 -> 2 = 2 meters, 4 = 40 watts in, 17 = 170 watts out

I'm guessing at 4 = 40 watts drive, not 4 watts, but you can see that
they were a bit inconsistent with the drive level digit, as can be
seen with my 3-211, which really does need only 2 watts of drive to
produce 110 watts of output.  (Requires some serious under-driving
of the 25 watt transverter to prevent blowing out the amp!)

I've been pretty happy with my "matched set of three".  I bought two
of them from a local estate sale that I heard about one Saturday
morning on the '76 Swap Shop, and I found the other one (222) on
closeout
at Burghardt's years ago.

> However, I have struck out on finding the Web site or even an address
> to request a catalog. Is RF Concepts still in business?

Not as a separate company.  They were bought by Alpha Power awhile
back, as I found out when one of mine needed the T/R relay replaced.
I thought that Alpha Power had been bought up by someone else, but
they seem to still be in business per their web site -- I didn't phone
them to test this assumption.

Per the web page, Alpha Power still sells a few amps under the
RF Concepts brand name, but not much of a selection any longer.
I see only 2M and 70cm models listed.
  http://www.alpha-amps.com/rfconcepts/index.html

Good luck on your hunt.

John (W0JT)