[Amps] 10 Meters

[Tom Rauch]

> I was mobile QRP (5 watts) this past weekend, while crossing USA in
> automobile. 10 meters was hot, lotta DX. I was was surprised by a
> number of sounding stations. A lot of high powered stations in Europe,
> Asia and Carribean were overdriven (obviously amplified) and had their
> audio so compressed and overloaded that it was painful to hear. I
> suppose that they believe that they have what it takes to crack
> through the QRM.  It was hard to hear stateside transmissions, but I
> noted that they also tended to the same extreme. 

The FT1000MP's of a contestor I looked at had the internal power 
limit pots cranked up so the FT1000MP's would run 150 watts. 

SSB IM products were over fifteen dB worse in the radios at 150 
watts than at 100 watts, and I expect the radios are operated that 
way quite often during contests.

I set internal controls back to 100 watts, and the next time I saw 
the radios they were back at 130 watts or so. 

This reminds me of CB operators, and "peaking radios up".
73, Tom W8JI
W8JI@contesting.com