[Amps] Ameritron Amps

Sun Jul 30 23:53:24 EDT 2006

Doug,
    I really hope you are not (but I think you are) implying that I am not level headed as I have been very careful about my wording about MFJ (Ameritron) but I guess it doesn't matter any more so here you go with the full version.  We can talk tech till the cows come home but the truth is the truth. Let me say it simply, I have owned two Ameritron amplifiers.  I am not impressed with the quality at all on at least one of them and I feel MFJ is way to slow in incorporating improvements.  Also, for the price on their high end units, there really is not an excuse for them to use 2,000 hour caps vice the 5,000 hour caps that are not much more. Read my earlier email about how you can expect 3 years before the power supply is beyond it's rated life expectancy.  The AL-80A was OK but it also broke (a power supply capacitor, go figure) and I have been on a web page where a guy had to do alot of mods to improve his.  Nor, am I impressed with the performance on my ALS-600.  Nor are
 many other people, read the eham.net reviews on it related to the relay please. Since we are really talking about MFJ  since they own Ameritron, I will continue my opinion about the quality of MFJ.  I have owned some of their tuners as well.  I used to own one of the 3kw units before they finally went to an air core.  Let me tell you, I melted two of their solid core roller inductors and suggested to the factory that they change it multiple times, it took them  years to come to the same conclusion and get around to making the change. I believe the only reason they did is was due to money loss on honoring warranties.  Same goes for the capacitor bank they are presently using.  If a guy blows it 4 times, there must be something wrong especially if the factory is involved in it's repair because it is new and can't get it right. I am a good judge of quality and it is obvious that Ameritron takes shortcuts.  Don't get me wrong, I am being very level headed but as a customer I
 do have a right to an opinion on what I have bought and so does every one else, irregardless of what kind of technical hocus pocus is being thrown their way.
    Now what is really going on is that MFJ offers a product that is a bit cheaper than the competitor and people go and buy that product because they feel they can't afford the nicer one that is more expensive.  If you had a chance to have a Ten-Tec or an MFJ(Ameritron) linear for the same type and price, which would you choose?  Same goes for QRO, Alpha etc...I would think if it was the same price MFJ would be out of business. Same goes for the tuners, would you choose a pulstar if it was the same price, I would guess yes?  Also, another thing MFJ does have is an extensive product line and they advertise full page in the ham magazines to get everyone's attention. I believe their full page advertisements are what really saved them after MJF took over. I have magazines where they have full page ads spread in more than one place on the same issue and repeated for months at a time. Inexperienced hams don't know any better except they can afford them and alot of people own
 them.
    As far as my ALS-600 goes, I cross my fingers hoping that the cheezy band switch is not the next item to go out.  It already has caused my brand new ICOM 706MKII to have problems with the ALC and also the VSWR display from it's continued hotswitching that won't go away unless I carefully hold the microphone button (with no noise) before using a CW key.  My final choice is that I am homebrewing a quality solid state linear because I cannot afford the quality solid state linears that are over 3,000 dollars .  I am looking at spending hundreds of dollars and alot of time to try to get that ALS-600 to be compatible with my rig but my rig is still damaged because of it within 1 month of it being recieved new, I guess I would have been better off homebrewing or just sticking with my existing Harris rackmounted system and it's solid state linear (now they have some serious quality) but no VFO. Read about the Ameritron QSK5 on eham.net reviews, another item that has a
 reputation of breaking transceivers simply because they won't provide good interface instructions on some of the rigs.....I was thinking to buy one of those to fix the ALS-600 hotswitching problem and now would be reeeaaally carefull it doesn't finish my Icom off the rest of the way.
  Mike Kendall

Doug Renwick <ve5ra at sasktel.net> wrote:
  Tom,

Thanks for the very level headed answer. Without knowing
all the facts it is very easy to come to the wrong
conclusion as many do. There are too many 'arm chair
quarterbacks' on this and other reflectors that have no
credibility. As you say, one should listen to only those
who actually know what they are talking about. And Tom you
have my vote.

Doug/VA5DX

Subject: Re: [Amps] Ameritron Amps

Mike,

I'm not posting this to pick at you, but just to show how we

can leap to very wrong conclusions that sound very 
authorative.

If people were paying $50K per amplifer and using them with 
navy generators I'd probably use the same headroom.

As for your friend changing all the parts, someone should 
have suggested checking the resistors right away. By far 
most electrolytic problems are caused by bad equalizing 
resistors.
They won't blow if there are bad caps. It's nearly 
impossible. The caps WILL blow with a single bad resistor, 
not the other way around. The resistors are running at about

half the CCS dissipation and are in an airstream. A 
capacitor would have to go to 600V just to reach rated 
dissipation in that environment, and probably 1200 volts to 
fail in a short period. That won't happen, I can assure you.

The caps would be long gone before they took out a resistor.

I certainly can't answer how MFJ does things, but for all 
the crying and whining from a few people.....Ameritron 
managed to increase sales year after year, often doubling or

tripling every year. When Prime took Ameritron to settle 
back debts from DJH, it was selling 5-10 amps a month. Last 
I knew it was selling about 150 amplifiers a month.

Had we not slowed the blower and "ticked off" people like 
W6WRT, the AL12 series sales would have absolutely died. The

number one complaint was blower noise. It was killing sales.

So we pulled the blower back to the very minimum possible 
and still hold seals below rated temperature, and made all 
the air go through the tube so we could use the least amount

of air possible.Sales went right up, and "I don't want it" 
complaints virtually died.

Most of the things people find fault with are actually 
things that would not change reliability in any way to the 
typical customer, and many of them actually would have had a

negative impact on sales. Some changes people want actually 
decrease reliability.

The only amplifier design influenced by Richard Measures 
sold a grand total somewhere around 50-100 amplifiers before

going belly up, and during its life had just as many field 
failures from arcing and bad tubes as any other amp using 
the same tube brand. As a matter of fact it was tube 
failures that killed the only nichrome suppressor amp that 
was commercially manufactured.

The 30L1, compared to the 811H a while ago, had a constant 
series of factory mods for stability issues. You can still 
take most 30L1's, remove the antenna and close the TX relay,

and make a 30L1 into a dandy oscillator. There isn't an 
amateur amp out there that does not have some sort of 
shortfall because it is a cost driven market.

People should keep all this in mind when they listen to the 
backyard Quarterbacks who have never designed and sold 
anything into this market. As some of the most vocal experts

what they have done and where they have worked. Have them 
point to some product that has sold well up into the 
thousands and made a profit in a cost critical market like 
this.

BTW, CB amplifiers don't count. Almost anyone can cobble 
together a single band 27MHz 4CX5000 or sweep tube amp for 
the occasional skip talker. So let's not pretend people get 
fired from engineering jobs or companies go bankrupt for 
exceeding tube curves in CB amps.

We should all stick to facts and not play silly games about 
how much better any one of us is than the rest of us. There 
isn't anything or anyone that is perfect.

Now let's all play nice and we can learn something FACTUAL 
for a change.

73 Tom 

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