[Amps] Sunset of old technologies

[Mark Hill]

Cathy,

Well, the Chinese have stepped in to keep supplies of some valves (tubes!) going a while longer. Surely a good thing, as would be a sin for old amps., serviceable in all other respects, to go to the graveyard for want of a plug-in part.

Chasing price points of $1500, or less, for a new, commercial HF SS amp. will remain hard to impossible even in the long term, I think, due to the various 'overhead' that comes with the technology. Ameritron cannot manage it at the 600 Watt level now and I'm sure they tried hard. Ironically, amongst all this QRO, some of the most expensive Watt over here probably come out of an Elecraft KXPA100. Only 100 of them and on offer from our UK dealers' at $12+ US each!

Icom chose not get too greedy when they priced the 7300 (about $1500 US here) and these have sold very well. While the computer-driven Flex and Anan etc are mature now, the battle in the 'SDR with knobs' space has yet to get going in Japan. Hopefully Kenwood and Yaesu will follow Icom's 'loss-leader' approach and we'll see some interesting radio in the next year, or two.

Regards,

Mark.

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Mark,

I think you are right about this, but the sunset of analog front-ends is happening faster than the HF tube PA one.

Price of late-generation analog transceivers:

Kenwood TS-590SG, about $1700
Yaesu FT-991A, about $1500
K3S, about $2900 (assembled, 100 watts)

Price of next-generation SDR radios:

Icom IC-7300, about $1400
KX3, about $1900 (assembled, with 100 watt outboard amplifier)

So we are already at a point where you can move to the next generation of transceiver design without paying a huge premium for comparable performance. For about $1500, you can get a seat in the game, and you won't find a new analog rig of similar performance for less.


But what does the situation in HF amps look like?

Price of tube-based amps:

Ameritron AL-811H, ~600 watts, about $900 Ameritron AL-80B, ~800 watts, about $1500 Ameritron AL-82, 1500 watts, about $2800 ACOM 1000, 1000 watts, about $2800 ACOM 1500, 1500 watts, about $4000

Cost per watt:  $1.50 - $2.80


Price of solid-state amps:

Ameritron ALS-600, 500 watts, about $1400 ACOM 600, 600 watts, about $2800 Elecraft KPA-500, 500 watts, about $3000 Elecraft KPA-1500, 1500 watts, about $6000 ICOM PW-1, 1500 watts, about $4900

Cost per watt:  $2.80 - $6.00


So it's still not practical to get the same performance *at the same price* from solid state power amplifiers.  It will come, but it's not there yet.

You can quibble with the choices of amps that I picked to make the point, but I don't think you can refute the core argument.

73,
Cathy
N5WVR

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Mark Hill <g4fph at mjha.co.uk> wrote:
> I think we are truly seeing the sun setting on valve HF PA and 
> analogue front-end transceivers.