[Amps] Why people don't build amps.

[Paul Decker]

Good post Bill, and on target. 



Modern systems are extremely complex, and as an active participant in team design, to get a modern product out the door takes the involvement of many engineers with different specialities .   This isn't because one person doesn't have the needed skills, it's partly because to learn and be an expert in a specific area means working in that area at the expense of learning and being an expert in other areas.   Being a Divinchi was difficult in his time, it's mostly impossible in our time. 



That being said, I really enjoy building and learning new things.  I do subscribe to various trade mags and ham mags which showcase building. 



For amplifiers in general, I would like to see some innovation, and that is my personal goal right now.   Some things that I think could be wonderful innovations are:  



- high power switch mode power supplies that can provide appropriate voltage and current, meaning the ability to supply tube voltages as well as configurations to supply solid state voltages and high currents. 



- More solid state high power designs.  The designs using MRF150's have been around for 20 years.  What about using the ARF1500's like in the THP amp? 



- Speaking of solid state, the amp is the easy part.  What about some published material on protection circuits.  Every amplifier book or article ever written leaves this up to the student, not once have I seen it discussed other than "Oh you need protection circuits"  



- How about class E amplifiers which use envelope restoration?  Higher efficiency, lower power supply and heat dissipation requirements , and possibly using cheaper off the shelf parts like switching FETs .  





My guess is for an $800 tube and a $400 transformer, we could substitute some engineering work and get some innovation out of it. 





BTW, my SMPS power supply is just about ready for prime time.  More testing is required, but so far so good!   





73, 
Paul Decker (KG7HF) 

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Message: 4 
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:03:07 -0600 
From: "Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO" <w5wvo@ cybermesa .net> 
Subject: Re: [Amps] Why people don't build amps. $$$ and Shop Class 
To: "Lee Buller " <k0wa@ swbell .net>,        <amps at contesting.com> 
Message-ID: <BBDFFC6199B24A008C3F6D264EB627C7 at BILLHP9250> 
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset ="iso-8859-1"; 
        reply-type=original 


I am not bored. Good post, Lee. 

I don't agree that the subject is too political, though. I think it bears 
thought and discussion. And, I think you have hit the nail on the head. 
There HAS been a generational change in the desire of most bright people to 
want to learn how things work. Why has this happened? 

One reason seems clear: Most technological stuff has grown too complex for 
an ordinary individual to understand how it works, even with significant 
self-study. Can one still learn and understand how an RF power amplifier 
works? Yes, of course. But that is old technology that few people, excepting 
a few amateurs and fewer professionals, find interesting and pertinent to 
real life. Try learning and understanding how the cellular communications 
system works. Really, down to the detailed level. Think you really 
understand it? Could you home-brew a cell phone system from discrete 
components? In almost all cases, the answer would be NO. 

And significantly, I think, neither could even the brightest engineers 
involved in that industry. Some small part of the system, maybe, depending 
on their engineering specialty. But there is simply too much complex, 
interdependent technology there for one person to master. Technology has 
moved from the realm of human invention and creation to the realm of 
participation in a process much larger than oneself. And this trend is 
mushrooming and evolving at warp speed. 

At some point, humans will move from the realm of being active creative 
participants in technological innovation to being merely managers of 
machines and machine systems that do the creative innovation themselves. 
This is not science fiction; it is happening right now, as we speak. 

This is changing our society, obviously, but more important, it is changing 
US. It is changing the way we see ourselves as independent, causative agents 
in our own lives. Some of us who see this happening and grasp the 
implications are just plain scared, and we rebel, get angry, become 
politically reactionary. But it's going to go where it's going to go. None 
of us is "in control" any more in the same way we've grown accustomed to 
thinking about that. 

Most of us hams, especially those of us on this board, are in the autumn of 
our years, to put it charitably. Ham radio has been a wonderful hobby for 
most of us; it certainly has been for me. And I continue to enjoy it 
tremendously, especially now that I know more and have more of the means to 
participate in the aspects of the hobby that interest me. But I don't expect 
ham radio as we have known it will survive unchanged into the next few 
generations. If it survives another half-century -- and I think that is far 
from certain -- it will be very different than what we have collectively 
known and created. 

That's OK with me -- because, not to put too fine a point on it, there ain't 
nuthin' I can do about it anyway. :-) 

Bill W5WVO