At 7:34 PM -0500 2000/11/27, Michael Tope wrote:
>I'll have to go back and read part 97 again just to see exactly
>what it says, but the way I figure it, there is nothing that says
>you can't own a 10KW amp, only that you can run it on the
>air at more than 1500 watts output.
Sounds good to me. I am happy that my car is capable of going over 65 mph
(or whatever the limit is). I'm happy that my amp is capable of putting
out over 1500 W. I'm happy to have guns that are _capable_ of killing
people, too. I don't believe in outlawing things just because somebody
somewhere sometime might do something illegal with them.
>Having a decent amount of headroom relative to 1500 watts in all the
>antenna and matching components means that you'll be less likely to have
>a failure when you inadvertantly load up your 1500 Watt amp on the wrong
>antenna where VSWR effects can raise RF voltages and currents
>to many times their matched levels....
Agreed! I wish it were easy to buy a balun or an antenna tuner that
wouldn't burn out at legal power but modestly high SWR. Last week the
W2FMI balun that I bought from Amidon and that was advertised as a "5 kW
balun" burned up when I put just 1.1 kW of forward power into it when the
SWR was equal to 5. And we've all seen so-called "legal limit"
antenna-tuners burn up on legal power.
I have an amp that's capable of much more than 1500 W so I can actually run
1500 W, and make an occasional tuning or matching or other operating error,
without it burning up.
However, I don't condone anyone running illegal power, because it spoils
things for the rest of us. It's not fair play. Just as a hunter who waits
for the season to open doesn't like to see poachers taking the game
beforehand. Just as most of us, at least, object to unlicensed people
using the ham bands.
73 de Chuck W1HIS
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