[Amps] 10 DB increase

[David Kirkby]

R.Measures wrote:

> After George Grammar left QST,things changed and the advertisers 
> became more important than QST subscribers.  When an advertised in 
> QST,  manufactured, "3kW" tuner caught fire at 900W in the ARRL Lab, 
> it was not reported in QST.  When the ARRL Lab technician noted that a 
> 3cx1200A7 amplifier made by the same manufacturer exhibited signs of 
> parasitic arcing during testing in the Lab, the problem was not 
> reported in the QST Product Review. 


That reminds me of Personal Computer World (and computer magazines) in 
the UK.

About a year ago they were telling us an Apple was the first 64-bit 
desktop computer. Yet a Sun Ultra 1 (about 50 pounds on eBay now) is 
64-bit and was around the best part of a decade ago. It is very much a 
desktop (smaller than the Apple). I wrote to the letters page of PCW and 
told them that, but it never got printed. (BTW, I think IBM had a 64-bit 
desktop before Sun, but Apple were way behind).

Now the magazines are full of telling us we need 64-bit computers. The 
fact well over 99% of peopole don't utilise the full capabilities of 
32-bit machines seems not to be reported - for the same reasons as your 
3CX1200A7  blowing up.

Then personal computer world run a 5 or so page article telling us one 
of the main advantages of these 64-bit computers was that they could do 
the floating point calculations much faster. The fact all Intel CPUs do 
it in 80-bits, and have done for perhaps two decades, seems to have 
escaped the idiot who wrote this article, telling us why we should all 
be buying 64-bit computers.

A combination of total idiots writing articles, and a strong advertising 
bias, makes me very weary of much I read in magazines.

My immediate boss at work (a very respectable scientist and a Fellow of 
the Royal Society) used to do some testing for HiFi magazines, but gave 
that up when it lost scientific merrit.

So I doubt your ATU and linear amps are isolated cases.

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby, 
G8WRB

Please check out http://www.g8wrb.org/ 
of if you live in Essex http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/