[Amps] Linear Amplifiers

[DAVE WHITE]

Hi Eddy
 
It's a nice amp though, wouldn't you say?  Nice clean lines, decent looking components.  It looks like quality construction.
 
If someone commissioned me to build them an amp (and plenty have asked) I'd be charging in the same region for it.  I'm charged out at over GBP100 her hour professionally as a IT/management consultant, so why not for amp building?
 
It's a bit different for those of us who build for ourselves to those who have to mass produce and sell for a living.  My amps have all been one-offs, built around surplus kit and second hand tubes found at fleamarkets from Dayton to Rochester to London to Friedrichshafen, where I can haggle for a low price and I can design around my components.  Trying to persuade Virgin Atlantic to let me check in a 250lb plate transformer on the way home from New York to London is an enduring memory and one that my wife still laughs about :-)
 
These blokes have to buy stuff new from suppliers, build and test amps to commercial grade so they don't get sued, often offer warranties AND they still have to make enough money to EAT.  Once your Mr Obama starts making you pay as much tax as we do you'll appreciate that, trust me....
 
For a new amp made from new components, tested and working I think it's a very fair price.  I don't know what Henry used to charge for an 8K, does anyone else know?
 
OF COURSE us home-brewers can undercut them by 95 percent and to my thinking no REAL Ham would buy such a thing - we'd build it ourselves.  Unless of course they've got a real physical disability like multiple sclerosis or Parkinsons etc and can't hold a glass of water let alone a soldering iron.  Spare a thought for them.
 
But the ham bands are full of appliance operators these days, who buy black boxes off the shelf, which is why exchanging information with you guys on this mail list is so precious.   We're an endangered species, there aren't many of us left!  A sad sign of the times, I'm afraid.
 
cheers
 
Dave G0OIL

--- On Sun, 30/11/08, EP Swynar <gswynar at durham.net> wrote:

From: EP Swynar <gswynar at durham.net>
Subject: [Amps] Linear Amplifiers
To: amps at contesting.com
Date: Sunday, 30 November, 2008, 5:39 PM

Good Day All,

I am continually amazed & perplexed at how some Hams will readily dole out
HUGE $$$ for amplifiers like this (see earlier eBay reference item
220304468622), when they can just as easily homebrew one that will be as
competitive as most ANY available "appliance", AND for one heckuva
savings,
too...

Homebuilt power amplifiers and QRO transmatches are, IMHO, the last bastion
left for those of us who enjoy "...rolling our own." HALF of the fun
of
using an amplifier is the journey getting there --- and by "journey"
I mean
the journey of coming up with a suitable schematic, collecting the parts,
laying them out, drilling / bending metal, soldering etc. etc., and NOT the
journey to the local Ham Radio Emporium...!

Best of all, the doggone things continually teach one something new, AND on
a regular basis --- or so it seems with my stuff here, anyway!

You certainly don't get that benefit by packaging-up a broken rig, &
delivering it to the local UPS depot for returning to the manufacturer...

My $0.02, anyway!

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ

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