[Amps] SS vs. Tubes (was "I gotta tell this")

[Bill Turner]

This gentleman has the soul of a poet. Right on!

Bill, W6WRT


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 3/29/2006 at 3:13 PM Theo Bellamy wrote:

>Cliff N7HIY wrote:
>
>>the broadcast, commercial and military transmitter industry has long ago
>>switched from archaic tube amplifier technology to solid state devices.
>>we, ham radio, are the laggards in the change of technology
>
>I really wish I could get excited about building an amp with solid state
>devices. I know we are not on the cutting edge when we build amps with 813s
>from WW2 or Russian Tank Radar tubes, but the transistors just seem so ...
>how can I put it? .... boring and lifeless. Maybe if I saw some really
>interesting looking homebrew ham amps with transistors I could get
>interested. But they all look like aluminum show  boxes. There is just
>something about hurling electrons through a vacuum with great heat, guiding
>their flow with a little voltage as they slam into a metal plate with a
>high
>and lethal voltage applied, hoping you have things adjusted correctly where
>it won't self destruct in a flash of sparks and smoke. This all seems
>natural to me. The way God himself wants amplifiers to be. There is just
>something slightly evil and deceitful about the way transistors just die a
>silent death. And then there is all that solder and heat sink compound. It
>just ain't right .....
>
>
>;-)
>
>Theo K4MO
>
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