[Amps] How about this furnace?

[Stan Stockton]

> From: R.Measures <r at somis.org>
> Date: 2006/01/02 Mon AM 05:56:44 EST
> To: Joe Isabella <n3ji at yahoo.com>
> CC: Amps <amps at contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [Amps] How about this furnace?
 
> In a telephone conversation with a multi-multi contest station  
> owner-operator in Colorado - whom I knew ran several 2500W amplifiers,  
> he kvetched at length about contest stations that used "illegal 10kW  
> amplifiers".  The laugher is that the advantage of a 10kW amplifier  
> over a legal amplifier is only 8db - hardly noticeable with QSB.

Rich - I am surprised that you would laugh at 8 db and refer to it as "only" 8 dB - harly noticeable with QSB."  

8 dB is only the difference between your average, city-lot shunt fed tower on 160M and perhaps the highest gain 160M antenna in the world which, just like having that gain in transmit power, is no advantage on receive because a good beverage system would outperform that antenna on receive.  8 dB is "only" the difference between a stack of five element yagis (10 elements) and approximately sixteen five element yagis (80 elements) in phase which would also perhaps be the largest antenna system on any HF band.

The difference between 2500W and 1500W is extremely difficult to achieve with antenna gain once you already have about 13 dBi on an HF band. There are plenty of  variables in comparing results in contesting without losing sleep or feeling guilty as to what place you might have achieved relative to someone else who worked harder on their antennas and did a better job of operating if you been legal in your operation.  

In my opinion, running 2.5KW or 10KW in a contest is exactly equivalent to playing in a golf tournament and dropping a ball out of your pocket when no one is looking instead of declaring a lost ball.

Stan, K5GO