Hi Danny,
The biggest problem we have is people hammering their already marginally
clean radios and amplifiers trying to get a little extra power. That is just
stupid CB operating, let's not encourage it. I hope all those people,
instead of making a 100 watt radio run 130 watts to make a small amplifier
big, buy 5 kW amplifiers and just turn their radios back to normal.
As for the manual, a manual will say anything the writer wants it to say. It
does not mean it is correct. It also does not mean it is normal behavior for
other amplifiers.
For the manual to be true, efficiency would have to decrease much faster
than plate input power decreases. That also would mean on SSB, with lower
average voice power, the amplifier would become hotter with quiet steady
voices than full peak power and speech processing. This does not mean all
normal amplifiers work that way. Normal AB amplifiers near full power reduce
efficiency nearly in proportion to power input reduction. They do not reduce
efficiency much faster than input power is reduced.
All those who have amplifiers that really get hotter as drive power is
reduced, I have bad news. Your amplifier needs work. It has a grid bias,
conduction angle, or voltage regulation problem.
I can explain why that is true, but this is not the correct forum. This is a
forum for people to insult each other between contests, not to help each
other. :-)
If someone is really running large amplifiers for conservative operation,
then we should all be thanking him. The people we should not be happy with
is the person who wants 1 kW but only has equipment for 750 watts.
I would rather have a 5 kW amplifier running 2500 watts next to me on any
band than a 100 watt radio trying to run 150 watts because some cheap Ham
wants every possible watt of power. Maybe he runs the radio at 150 watts so
the 100 watt radio runs cooler and cleaner than a 200 watt radio at 150
watts? :-)
73 Tom
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