More Power

[RFPWR at aol.com]

Hi All:

Over on the swap newsgroup a day or so ago, I saw a used 4CX5000 commercial
amp advertised for sale. That posting and the recent ones on here about super
QRO caused me to recall some past installations I have seen, back in the
early 70's. Although I have been only moderately active on contesting and
DX'ing since then, my feeling is that these super QRO installations are less
common today. 

I recall one station who had a homebrew 4CX5000 amplifier built into his wall
closet. He had another mounted remotely in his garage. A Raytrack DX2000L was
used for a driver (2x3-500Z). The antennas were long boom mono yagis at 120'
plus, fed with large Heliax. 

There was another 4CX5000 amp in the same geographic area, although with only
a 204BA at 50'. 

Then there were the second level QRO stations who were running a pair of
4-1000's. There must have been a bunch of these around; I have seen 5 or 6 of
these stations. 
I once saw a station (not a contester, a DX-er)  who had 5 rack mounted amps,
one for each band, each with a pair of 4-1000's. 

All of the above examples were before the days of 1500W output as  the legal
limit. I am willing to bet that there were even bigger stations out there.
Texas and California are rumored to be locations for really big power amps. 

Now we have the situation where all of us running popular amps with ceramic
tubes can exceed the legal power output limit. Anyone with  an Alpha
(2x3CX800 or 3x 3CX400), 
Ameritron (3CX1200 or 8877/3CX1500),  or other similarly equipped box can do
it. My feeling is that, these days, we are all pretty much running similar
power levels (within a few db :-) . To me, a station running 3 or 4 KW today
has no significant advantage over someone running at the approximate legal
output limit, especially if the legal limit station has better antennas
(stacks, etc). 

There are a lot of two holer's out there. Last year while in WV, I walked
into a CB'ers shack and he had a new commercial amateur amplifier (one holer)
made by a famous, well known concern. I asked him how he was able to buy it.
He said "I just called the factory and ordered it." If a CB'er can do that,
how difficult can it be for a ham to buy a two holer? 

His buddy across the "holler" had one also. He had 2 SB220's as standby
units. 

I hear the latest thing is to run multiple, legal limit amps to separate
antennas, driven by a common exciter. That way, you can "spray" a legal limit
signal in each direction. 
Or, multiple legal limit signals in one direction. :-) Stacked antennas and
amplifiers :-)

If Tim "Tool Man" Taylor was a ham, he'd be reaching for the Variac. More
Power!!
Gosh, I wish this SSB WPX contest wasn't so boring. 

73, Chas N8RR
ex DL4CM, WA8FCM 

>From Gary Schwartz <garyk9gs at solaria.sol.net>  Sun Mar 31 05:49:11 1996
From: Gary Schwartz <garyk9gs at solaria.sol.net> (Gary Schwartz)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 23:49:11 -0600 (CST)
Subject: TS850S Filter
Message-ID: <Pine.3.02.9603302307.A13631-b100000 at solaria.sol.net>

On Sat, 30 Mar 1996, Carlos Augusto Silveira Pereira wrote:

> If you have to buy just one IF Filter for the TS850S (limited budget
> reasons) for CW operation, which filter would you buy? Why?
> 
> YK-455-C1
> YK-455CN-1
> YK-88C-1
> YK-88CN-1
> 
> Thanks for the info in advance!
> 

I would buy none of the above.  Get an International Radio 250 or 500 Hz
filter for the 455 kHz IF.  In fact, the I R filters are less money than the
Kenwoods, perform better and you might have enough $$ left over to buy the
complementing filter for the other IF.


73,
Gary K9GS 
   __________________
  /       K9GS       |______________________________
 /   FP/K9GS, TO5M   |Society of Midwest Contesters |____________________
(                    |   garyk9gs at solaria.sol.net   |Secretary/Treasurer/
 \   Gary Schwartz   |   K9GS at WA9KEC.WI.USA.NOAM    | Greater Milwaukee/
  \__________________|     PacketCluster: NB9C      |  DX Association (
                   (________________________________|       GMDXA      \
                                                  (_____________________\




>From jcarter at mailhost2.csusm.edu (Jerry A Carter)  Sun Mar 31 07:41:42 1996
From: jcarter at mailhost2.csusm.edu (Jerry A Carter) (Jerry A Carter)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 23:41:42 -0800
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <9603310728.AA15404 at owl.csusm.edu>

sugnoff


>From Charles Epps <epps at netcom.com>  Sun Mar 31 07:59:27 1996
From: Charles Epps <epps at netcom.com> (Charles Epps)
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 23:59:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: WRTC Awards Program -- Help!
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9603302324.A6728-0100000 at netcom7>


Hi All.  How about letting me tap the collective contesting brain power 
out there?  I am chairperson of the World Radiosport Team Championship's 
(WRTC-96) Publicity Committee, and as such I have the assignment of 
designing an awards program which will make it fun and challenging for 
everyone to find and work the WRTC team stations.  This note is to 
solicit suggestions from the contesting fraternity for features we might 
include in the awards program to help achieve those objectives.

First, some facts about the event which you might want to consider in 
coming up with your suggestions.  The WRTC competition will be a 
"sub-competition" within the framework of the larger IARU HF World 
Championship contest scheduled for the weekend of July 13 and 14, 1996.  
There will be a total of 52 WRTC stations competing only with each other 
as small, two-person multi-single stations, but they can work anybody and 
everybody operating in the IARU contest.  The WRTC stations will operate 
for only the first 18 hours of the IARU contest (from 12:00 UTC, July 13 
until 06:00 UTC, July 14 -- that's 05:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. local 
time), and their operations will be limited to only 4 bands -- 40, 20, 15 
and 10 meters.  You can work them once on cw and once on ssb on each 
band, so the maximum number of QSOs one can make working WRTC stations 
will be 4 (bands) x 2 (modes) x 52 (stations) = 416 possible QSOs.  The 
52 WRTC stations all will be on flat terrain, running relatively low 
power (100 watts maximum output) and using relatively modest antennas 
(one rotary tribander up about 50 feet and one 40 meter dipole).  They 
probably will favor cw over ssb because they get twice as many QSO points 
for their cw QSOs as they do for ssb QSOs (that scoring feature is 
designed to help minimize the advantage realized by those who have 
English as their native language).  And of course, all this activity is 
taking place during our local summer in a year when we are near the 
bottom of the sunspot cycle.  One positive aspect is that at least it 
will be easy to identify the WRTC stations because they all will be using 
specially assigned "1x1" callsigns (such as W6A, W6B, K6Y and K6Z) which 
our Federal Communications Commission was kind enough to authorize for 
the WRTC event.

Our initial thinking is to offer "grades" of awards that can be earned by 
anyone who works a certain number of different WRTC stations (maximum = 
52) and by anyone who makes a certain number of total QSOs (maximum = 
416).  We foresee the "low end" being set at numbers that anyone making a 
reasonable effort should be able to achieve (and the award as being 
something simple and inexpensive such as a certificate) and progressing 
in steps up to the "high end" which will take a major operating effort to 
achieve (and which will be recognized with a commensurably nicer award 
such as an embroidered jacket, engraved plaque or the like).  We realize 
we probably need to have separate categories to distinguish between local 
stations who can work the WRTC competitors on all bands via ground wave 
as contrasted with stations farther away who will have to contend with 
the vagaries of skip.

So, given all that background, what suggestions do you folks have?  What 
are realistic levels at which we should set the award breakpoints?  What 
else should we consider?  Should we even structure the program in some 
different way?  The one thing you do not need to suggest is that we award 
a super nice plaque to the non-local station who makes the most WRTC 
QSOs, because that award, known as the "Canada Trophy," already has been 
donated through the generosity of the Radio Amateurs of/du Canada, Inc. 
(RAC).  

Please send your thoughts and suggestions directly to me 
(epps at netcom.com) within the next few days.  We're going to have to move 
rapidly to finalize the WRTC awards program in time to meet the 
publication dates of the amateur radio magazines and newsletters in which 
we hope to have it publicized.

Thanks and 73 de Rusty Epps, W6OAT
WRTC-96, Inc.


>From jfeustle at UOFT02.UTOLEDO.EDU (Joseph A. Feustle, Jr.)  Sun Mar 31 14:28:46 1996
From: jfeustle at UOFT02.UTOLEDO.EDU (Joseph A. Feustle, Jr.) (Joseph A. Feustle, Jr.)
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 09:28:46 -0500 (EST)
Subject: ETO 91B
Message-ID: <v01510100ad83ff944a64@[131.183.100.122]>

I've had mine, a beta unit, since last year's ARRL DX CW contest. It has
been back once. One of the Svetlana tubes went bad. The turn around was
less than ten days. Since then, I had a problem with the vacuum relay for
QSK. It got stuck in the transmit position. I called Ray and he asked if I
wanted to send it back. I told him I thought I could replace the defective
part. Ray said he'd put a new relay in the mail. That was six weeks ago,
and I'm still waiting for the replacement relay. I tapped the ill-behaved
unit with a screwdriver and have been back in business ever since.

As far as power goes, 1500 watts out easy. With the exception of the
problems noted above, the amp has performed flawlessly.

J. Feustle, N8AAT