[Amps] Why hasn't solid state replaced tubes?

[Tom Rauch]

> I use a Nye Viking RF3000, RF power monitor.  I'd have to dig out the
> book to be sure.  I checked it against my Bird and it seemed close

I'm not sure how the Nye is. Many not-fast-enough peak meters agree with
really fast meters on things like voice, but will miss 2-10mS pulses.

That was a major problem when finding meters to test medical generators that
put out a sharp pulse on 27.120Mhz. I even went through a long back and
forth exchange with Coaxial Dynamics and Bird until we modified the meters.

One cheap meter that is really fast and holds well is the meter in ATR30's
and the Ameritron wattmeter. (Not the MFJ meters, they are all junk. They
don't even read a steady SSB "helllloooo" correctly.) It actually can catch
relay sequencing in amplifiers, where the tiny arc causes a broadband click.
The broadband transient shows as an SWR spike (I can hear it on a receiver
also) becuase it has energy from d-c to light, being caused after the
pi-net.

> overshoot.  For a 100 watt output transmitter I was getting peaks
> beyond 200 watts.  I think there was somthing wrong in the alc, I
> dident have it very long.

My IC706 mobile puts out up to 180w pulse depending on supply voltage, even
when cranked down to 10 watts. My FT1000D will overshoot also if I don't
keep the drive control down.

This beats the heck out of tank components, and even can cause tubes or tank
circuits to arc. I had to disconnect the overdrive protection in my mobile
amplifier because of the 706's bad overshoot.

73 Tom