Dear Roger,
the industry of ham radio gear placed such a weird perfectionism in our brain
that we find a home brewed linear amp which has not all knobs symmetrical
arranged and in one line is UGLY! What's really ugly is our brain. " Beauty is
in the eye of the beholder", isn't THAT true? And the beauty lies in the report
I receive from a ham station, which can't see how UGLY my amp looks like. What
really counts is the report I receive and the signal quality in general,
nothing else!
Can you tell me who needs all the knobs and functions of an Yaesu FT-9000, a
Yaesu FT-2000 or a Yaesu FT-1000?????? I could have mentioned radios from ICOM
and Kenwood as well. How can the troops use HF radio without all that knobs and
perfectionistic functions? I rarely use all the knobs of my Yaesu FT-890, how
could I argue (to my wife) to buy a such a super-dooper-perfect gear when I
find that I never ever use more than a small fraction of its functions, hmmmm???
We still can find all parts to build a nice amplifier and building makes proud.
So many hams have RF-parts collected throughout the last 30 years and keep them
like eyeballs. Men, when you jump into the black box, your wifes put all these
parts into the trash can. So wake up, use these parts or offer them for a
resonable price!
To buy a transceiver of the shelf, a medium sized one, will be OK in my eyes.
But an amplifier is a different story as its complexety is much less. If you
look into these cheap amps like those from Axxxxxxxx for example, you really
SEE and FEEL why one should buy a linear oneself. And finally, why not building
a monoband amp or two monoband amps with cheap tubes and just one power supply.
No band switches, no parasitic resonances, much less building risk. I see that
many hams use their amps just for two bands: 80m in winter and during night
time, 20m for DX. Or you may think of a set of plug-in coils for all bands. So
many ways to go and MOST ways will NEVER be used by the industry! So if we free
our mind, lets use one or the other way. Who care how UGLY it looks like!
By the way, here is an idea for a perfectionist: Did you ever ask at a modern
mechanics shop which has laser equipment to cut and engrave a front panel for
your homebrewed linear? Why not? If you design it yourself on a friends PC who
has a CAD software... Cutting and engraving isn't THAT expencive, engineering
hours ARE expencive. This way you could have a professional look too for less
money than you might think. Anyway, I have THAT many gear with dozens of knobs
without any engraved indication of its function. It still works and works.
73 de Andy DH5AK
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