[Amps] Multi-Amp w/ Power Combiners

[Sam Carpenter]

I have often thought of why I do not see the running of multiple HF Tube
amps with power combining networks. It would seem that the overall cost of
using more than one smaller amplifier would be a net savings because of the
relatively low cost of building medium power amps. It seems like a
reasonable way to build a lot of power and spread the stress of a system out
a bit to lower priced components. It also partially eliminates the single
point of failure to take all the power down with a single glitch. I
understand that frequency agility would be more cumbersome and time
consuming, but in many applications, you don't move much. Neither input nor
output combining is complicated so long as you are staying fairly put with
regard to frequency. Does anybody do this outside of broadcasting and
commercial? N9FUT