[Amps] Any comments on the Ameritron solid state amp?

[Don Nesbitt]

Hi John - I've had some experience with the ALS600 and
have found it to be a very nice docile little amp.  I
bought the first one at Dayton last year just to see
how well it was made and how it actually performed in
the "real" world.  I found it to be reasonably well
made and the performance was excellent.  The built in
fault protection worked flawlessly when I purposely
subjected it to various mismatches and operator
"errors."  Power output was as advertised with about
70 watts pep drive and the input swr was very
reasonable - a good match for my various solid state
exciters without resorting to built in or external
matching units.

Being instant on and able to jump bands with just the
turn of the band-switch is a nice feature in contests
and dxing.  The antenna must present a fairly low (not
more than about 1.7:1) swr to the amp or it will trip
out.  Resetting it is a simple matter of flipping the
Operate/Standby switch back to the Standby position
and then back to the Operate position.

The RF deck has a large fan that moves plenty of air
and is very quiet.  The fan on the remote power supply
is small and much noisier.  For me it creates a bit of
an annoying whine even when placed under the operating
table.  I ordered a replacement fan for the power
supply from Ameritron and it creates the same amount
of noise as the original.  My ALS600 is the model with
the standard power supply (quite hefty!).  I don't
know how noisy the lightweight switching supply is.

All in all I think it's a very nice little amp.  My
brother talked me out of the first one and I liked it
so much that I have since purchased another - this one
is staying home!  As usual, YMMV  Have fun es 73 --Don
N4HH


-- john <johnmb at nc.rr.com> wrote:

> I've been looking at the Ameritron ALS600 solid
> state amp.
> Any 1st hand experience with this would be greatly
> appreciated. 
> Would also appreciate any alternatives others have
> explored when
> looking for a similar "no tune" solid state amp.
> 
> 73
> John K5MO
> 
> 
> -- 
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