[Amps] 2KW $1000 amp kit

Jim Kearman jkearman at att.net
Mon Jan 2 17:22:07 EST 2006


> I've never understood why amplifiers cost $1 a watt.  Some are $3 a watt.

My Elmer, K2IHO (SK) told me to expect to pay $1 a watt, back in 1963. So $3 a watt doesn't seem so bad today. 
 
> I think someone could make a mint by selling amp kits.  A 2000W amp kit 
> for $1000 would sell like mad I'd think.  

Oh, yeah, they'd be lining up for that one. But I don't think it's possible. The tube(s) and transformer would cover 2/3 of that cost. If you scrounge and beg you can build one cheap, but not if you have to produce them in quantity. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is the cost of an Alpha is heavily weighted toward hardware, not assembly labor costs. With the expected markup, of course. You can modularize the design and cut assembly costs way down, but parts is parts. 

> I could be wrong.  If the 
> bands are restructured to let Technician licensees on HF the demand for 
> legal limit amps will go nuts.

Heaven help us, at least the majority of them won't be on CW. I know for a fact that you can get close to the legal limit, if not right to it, for a few hundred bucks. I bought a homebrew pair of 813s with p/s recently for $50. It had a behemoth Chicago power transformer and plenty of other good parts. I wouldn't necessarily run 813s, but the transformer would power other, newer tubes. (Before my inbox is inundated, I traded it to a friend.) Hit the hamfests and prowl eBay obsessively, and you will find what you need to build a decent amp without going broke. Or cut to the chase, buy new tubes and a Peter Dahl transformer, and scrounge the other stuff. That's the route I'm taking. I figure to build my legal-limit amp for about half the cost of an AL-1200, but if I billed my time spent tracking down parts and driving to hamfests, it would be cheaper to buy that 10kW furnace. I could do it for less money but this route suited my agenda. 

73,

Jim, KR1S


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