[Amps] Alpha 76a

[Carl]

Mine is a 3 holer PA that had a hard former life in a Caribbean contest 
station. It was given to me as payment for fixing their other amps and I put 
it back together as new....almost.

I run at 1200-1300W maximum and keep the grid current and drive as low as 
possible to get there. Since it is the 2nd station amp it gets very light 
duty except when chasing new ones on several bands.
The primary amp is still a LK-500ZC Ive had since 86.

While swapping to a pair of 3CX800's is simple enough even those are not 
cheap as medical pulls and at some finite date Eimac will kill those also.

Carl
KM1H


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ROBERT HARMON" <k6uj at pacbell.net>
To: <amps at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Amps] Alpha 76a


Charles,


I agree 100%.   The Alpha 76PAC is one of the best amps ever made, a real 
workhorse.  Like a Timex watch,
"takes a licking and keeps on ticking" ,  with one caveat, as you indicated, 
watch the grid current.
I run mine hard all the time (and keep a watchful eye on the grid current)
Remember the "brick on the key" advertisements for these amps ?  My favorite 
is the ad  used in 1981
which shows the usual heading of " Key Down, How Long ?"  and instead of the 
normally used brick on the
key there is a skeleton sitting there with his hand on the key.  Now thats a 
good amp !  hihihi

73,
Bob
K6UJ







Alpha “brick on the key” durability. If you are looking for a good used 
entry level amp, it's hard to go wrong with this old work horse. I 
personally would like to see Alpha bring this amp back into production, the 
simplicity of analog metering with basic controls is the way to go. The 
“over use” of LED metering electronics just adds to the cost.




On Sep 11, 2011, at 9:10 PM, Charles Harpole wrote:

>
> I have an Alpha 76PAC and IF you watch the grid, you can drive this amp to 
> 3kw out if u want.... This is one battleship amp, but too much grid, over 
> half scale is vy bad, will kill the tubes fast.Alpha always sez "No ALC." 
> I agree.  ALC is for whimps.  Please, gentlemen and ladies, your radios 
> ARE THERE TO USE, not to baby and fall in love with....they are things, 
> not people.DRIVE IT ....DRIVE IT... GO GO GO...........  73, Charles 
> Harpole k4vud at hotmail.com
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