[Amps] combine

[John T. M. Lyles]

Hi jim,
I wouldn't do 'air' combining, as you invariably will find dead spots 
in the overall radiation pattern, due to proximity effects of objects 
to each antenna, etc. Also it is expensive and takes real estate.

Use a combiner. Build or buy one. (ARRL and Orr handbooks cover 
them). Just be careful if one amp craps out or gets weak or shifts 
phase, that there is a way to protect the other one. In other words, 
either have isolation in the combiner, or have protective circuits 
like VSWR trip on each amp.

73
John
K5PRO
(still reviving the Johnson 500).


At 9:07 AM -0500 1/20/04, amps-request at contesting.com wrote:
>Hello fellow amp gurus- I have a question for the experts. I have two TE
>systems 350 watt 2 meter solid state amplifiers and wanted to combine the two.
>What is the best way of doing this? Should I use a power combiner? 
>Should I run
>each amp into a seperate antenna with equal feedline lengths while 
>driving both
>with the exciter simultaneously?  Any other ideas, suggestions? Thanks for
>any and all input.
>
>73,
>Jim