[Amps] Not just you... The cost of amplifiers

[w8hw at comcast.net]

Cathy, Well put... I could not agree with you more... I have Ameritron 
AL1500 Gives me full (plus) power and Kenwood TL922 (1400 watts). Yes both 
are manual tune, but both work so great. I have repaired over 250 amplifiers 
(both Solid state and tube), all were other peoples amps, my amps keep going 
with no problems. If something did go wrong with one of my amps, it would 
not be down long as I would not have to ship it anywhere to be repaired. 
Most people with auto tune amps are not able to say that.

How is the performance??? Performance can't be exceeded or even matched. 
Main radio is Flex 5000, SDR . All of which have netted me 9B-DXCC  to the 
tune of DXCC on ALL 8 HF bands as well as 160 meters and DXCC on 3 modes, 
CW, Digital and SSB. Additionally ARRL Century award 2500 band countries as 
well as ARRL DX honor roll. All of this done in little more than 10 years of 
DXing. My point... I don't know of anyone with an auto tune amp that can 
claim that. If anyone reading this is the exception to that, please let me 
know, I would love to hear from you and then congratulate you.

73, Bruce, W8HW
============================

-----Original Message----- 
From: Catherine James
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2016 09:12
To: Amps Group
Subject: [Amps] Not just you... The cost of amplifiers

"Maybe its just me, but I have problems wrapping my head around
spending $7995.00  ( $10,313.55  in cdn dollars)...on any amplifier"

It's not just you. I have trouble picturing myself spending more than, oh, 
call it $3k on an amp, and even that would be a real stretch. Better to 
surrender the money on multiple amps to provide backups and extra 
capabilities.

I have 3 amps:. an AL-811H bought new, an SB-220 bought at a hamfest and 
repaired, and a 2-meter TE Systems 160 watt amp. Probably have a total of 
$2k invested on all three combined. ( Technically I have a fourth, a 
QRP-to-35-watts HFPacker, but that's pretty specialized. It lets my K1 be 
heard.)

I have sacrificed frequency agility to save $$$. To me it's a good 
trade-off.

I've spent quite a bit of money on ham radio over 20+ years, but never too 
much on any one thing.

73,
Cathy
N5WVR

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