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Re: [Amps] 2KW $1000 amp kit

To: Jason Buchanan <jsb@digistar.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] 2KW $1000 amp kit
From: jkearman@att.net (Jim Kearman)
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 22:22:07 +0000
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>
> I've never understood why amplifiers cost $1 a watt.  Some are $3 a watt.

My Elmer, K2IHO (SK) told me to expect to pay $1 a watt, back in 1963. So $3 a 
watt doesn't seem so bad today. 
 
> I think someone could make a mint by selling amp kits.  A 2000W amp kit 
> for $1000 would sell like mad I'd think.  

Oh, yeah, they'd be lining up for that one. But I don't think it's possible. 
The tube(s) and transformer would cover 2/3 of that cost. If you scrounge and 
beg you can build one cheap, but not if you have to produce them in quantity. 
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is the cost of an Alpha is 
heavily weighted toward hardware, not assembly labor costs. With the expected 
markup, of course. You can modularize the design and cut assembly costs way 
down, but parts is parts. 

> I could be wrong.  If the 
> bands are restructured to let Technician licensees on HF the demand for 
> legal limit amps will go nuts.

Heaven help us, at least the majority of them won't be on CW. I know for a fact 
that you can get close to the legal limit, if not right to it, for a few 
hundred bucks. I bought a homebrew pair of 813s with p/s recently for $50. It 
had a behemoth Chicago power transformer and plenty of other good parts. I 
wouldn't necessarily run 813s, but the transformer would power other, newer 
tubes. (Before my inbox is inundated, I traded it to a friend.) Hit the 
hamfests and prowl eBay obsessively, and you will find what you need to build a 
decent amp without going broke. Or cut to the chase, buy new tubes and a Peter 
Dahl transformer, and scrounge the other stuff. That's the route I'm taking. I 
figure to build my legal-limit amp for about half the cost of an AL-1200, but 
if I billed my time spent tracking down parts and driving to hamfests, it would 
be cheaper to buy that 10kW furnace. I could do it for less money but this 
route suited my agenda. 

73,

Jim, KR1S
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