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Re: [Amps] Linear Amplifiers

To: EP Swynar <gswynar@durham.net>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Linear Amplifiers
From: chasm@texas.net
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:09:35 -0600
List-post: <amps@contesting.com">mailto:amps@contesting.com>
EP Swynar wrote:
> Good Day All,
> 
> I am continually amazed & perplexed at how some Hams will readily dole out
> HUGE $$$ for amplifiers like this (see earlier eBay reference item
> 220304468622), when they can just as easily homebrew one that will be as
> competitive as most ANY available "appliance", AND for one heckuva savings,
> too...
> 
> Homebuilt power amplifiers and QRO transmatches are, IMHO, the last bastion
> left for those of us who enjoy "...rolling our own." HALF of the fun of
> using an amplifier is the journey getting there --- and by "journey" I mean
> the journey of coming up with a suitable schematic, collecting the parts,
> laying them out, drilling / bending metal, soldering etc. etc., and NOT the
> journey to the local Ham Radio Emporium...!
> 
> Best of all, the doggone things continually teach one something new, AND on
> a regular basis --- or so it seems with my stuff here, anyway!
> 
> You certainly don't get that benefit by packaging-up a broken rig, &
> delivering it to the local UPS depot for returning to the manufacturer...
> My $0.02, anyway!
> ~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ


sorry, but since I have gotten back into this hobby at the ripe old 
age of 60 something, I have continually discovered that the old gray 
matter seems to have atrophied or ???  40 or some years ago, I enjoyed 
doing all that you mention above but today, I flinch to think about 
buying a soldering iron and relearning those simple skills.

I would love to have the skills to build a frequency agile 3kw amp 
which would allow me to go from 160m to 10m continuously and which 
would do so by simply changing frequency on my txcvr.  regardless of 
whether it is in the ham bands, MARS bands or ???

Those are a LOT of skills for anyone who has not been learning and 
excercising all of them pretty muchly constantly over the last 30 yrs 
or so.  unfortunately, many of us have spent those valuable years 
doing other things like, raising families, fighting in wars, fighting 
debilitating diseases, trying to make a living in fields far abroad 
from HF electronics and SO ON....

As a result, I and I am sure I speak for many/most of us, take my hat 
off to people like you who are still able to do all this.  Lord knows, 
  we NEED to be able to find some way to obtain the equipment at the 
approximate value point of kit building vs buying it off the internet 
or wherever.  However, lacking friends who do not mind building an amp 
just for the joy of doing so and then "giving it away" for the cost of 
parts, etc... we are driven to stores which sell Mighty Fine Junque or 
similar.   or worse, equipment which does not even meet FCC standards 
and are barely fit for use as CBers illegal boxes.

off the rant but I hope that you see an additional viewpoint to 
explain why so few are still building their own and even less are 
building for others. <G>

73
chas k5dam

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