Steve,
The FCC says that 5 watts is all you need to transmit on 11 meters. For local
communications, 5 watts works quite well. Now when it comes to someone maybe
50-100 miles apart, or in the mountainous regions of the US, you need a little
more
umph. I would imagine 5 watts for QRP on the amateur bands would be the same.
Actually, I've seen as low as 2 watts work quite well. It's according to where
your
transmitting from and how much traffic is on the same frequency. That's what
I've seen on both amateur QRP rigs and 11 meter transceivers.
My guess is that if manufacturers could, they would make amateur rigs at 5-10
watts because they're cheaper to build. I think the 100 watts out has a lot to
do
with the available tubes amps are made with like the 3-500Z. Getting down to 5
watts now would require a tube to be grid driven, or use some smaller tube for
a drive
stage between that and the larger tube. I'd say that the tube manufacturers
would
come up with something to fit the bill and be linear to boot. I figure the amp
manufacturers would adapt as well like the 11 meter builders did. I know of two
brands of 11 meter amps that were FCC type accepted at one time, so they had
to be clean. Somes' non-linear, cheap, and cobbled together theory don't really
hold water. Amateur amps could be built to suit the drive power easy enough.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 8/3/06 at 2:54 PM Steve Katz wrote:
>>I think the thing that stops QRP rigs is the fact most
>people don't enjoy intentionally making other people
>miserable.<
>
>::I do this demo quite frequently (easier on SSB than on CW, 'cause it's
>easier to explain):
>
>"Oh, you're running 5 Watts? Cool, I hear you just fine. I'm going to
>drop
>my power to 5 Watts now, too, so you can hear me just like I hear you!
>Here
>goes....
>
>...okay, now I'm at 5 Watts, too. How copy, Joe?"
>
>"Ummmm, what did you say at the end there, Steve? You dropped into the
>noise. Say again?"
>
>Demo over.
>
>WB2WIK/6
>
>
>
>
>
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