No subject

[Dan Robbins]

Doug, KR2Q, wrote:

"I have been "invited" to operate at stations with BIG AMPS and I simply will
NOT go...even if they do NOT run amp.  Just HAVING IT THERE is enough to keep
me away!  As stated, JUST STAY AWAY!"

Following this reasoning, Doug should never ride in a car that will do over
65 mph (or whatever his local speed laws are).

It is an extremely poor practice to design or use a piece of equipment that
does not have some built in overhead between the maximum usage and the
regular usage.  Most cars that will do 100 mph or even 140 are not meant to
run that way 100% of the time, rather they have that overhead so you can
drive across country at 65 or 70 mph without fear of overworking the engine
or the drivetrain.  Likewise, an amplifier that can peak 2 or 3 kw out will
run very cool at 1500 out without fear of blowing up in 48 hours of contest
usage.

I once saw an amp that used a 3CX3000.  It was probably capable of 5000 out,
but the builder puposely used less than "normal" high voltage to keep the
gain low so that 100 watts in would give only 1500 out.  This amp was
virtually indestructible, no matter how mistuned, the plate and grid
dissipation would never be excceded as long as it was only driven with the
owner's hundred watt rig.  Sounds like a pretty good design to me.  But the
guy got rid of the amp as he couldn't stand all the snide comments and
harassment from other hams.  Even though he never ran illegal power and was
actually incapable of running illegal power without changing the power
supply or adding a driver amp.

Do-gooders on a mission usually wind up doing more harm than good.  Let's
not start automatically ostracizing contesters because of their hardware.
It's all too easy to rationalize that the guy that beat us in a pileup or a
contest did so only because he bent the rules and did something wrong...more
likely he won because he did more things RIGHT.


                                                        Dan KL7Y
 



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