[Amps] Why people don't build amps.

[dd3ly at arcor.de]

Dear Roger,

the industry of ham radio gear placed such a weird perfectionism in our brain that we find a home brewed linear amp which has not all knobs symmetrical arranged and in one line is UGLY! What's really ugly is our brain. " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", isn't THAT true? And the beauty lies in the report I receive from a ham station, which can't see how UGLY my amp looks like. What really counts is the report I receive and the signal quality in general, nothing else!

Can you tell me who needs all the knobs and functions of an Yaesu FT-9000, a Yaesu FT-2000 or a Yaesu FT-1000?????? I could have mentioned radios from ICOM and Kenwood as well. How can the troops use HF radio without all that knobs and perfectionistic functions? I rarely use all the knobs of my Yaesu FT-890, how could I argue (to my wife) to buy a such a super-dooper-perfect gear when I find that I never ever use more than a small fraction of its functions, hmmmm???

We still can find all parts to build a nice amplifier and building makes proud. So many hams have RF-parts collected throughout the last 30 years and keep them like eyeballs. Men, when you jump into the black box, your wifes put all these parts into the trash can. So wake up, use these parts or offer them for a resonable price! 

To buy a transceiver of the shelf, a medium sized one, will be OK in my eyes. But an amplifier is a different story as its complexety is much less. If you look into these cheap amps like those from Axxxxxxxx for example, you really SEE and FEEL why one should buy a linear oneself. And finally, why not building a monoband amp or two monoband amps with cheap tubes and just one power supply. No band switches, no parasitic resonances, much less building risk. I see that many hams use their amps just for two bands: 80m in winter and during night time, 20m for DX. Or you may think of a set of plug-in coils for all bands. So many ways to go and MOST ways will NEVER be used by the industry! So if we free our mind, lets use one or the other way. Who care how UGLY it looks like!

By the way, here is an idea for a perfectionist: Did you ever ask at a modern mechanics shop which has laser equipment to cut and engrave a front panel for your homebrewed linear? Why not? If you design it yourself on a friends PC who has a CAD software... Cutting and engraving isn't THAT expencive, engineering hours ARE expencive. This way you could have a professional look too for less money than you might think. Anyway, I have THAT many gear with dozens of knobs without any engraved indication of its function. It still works and works.

73 de Andy DH5AK