[CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max

[Jim Brown]

Guys,

I'm about to buy an Alpha 87A, early production, without the Alpha Max 
Firmware. That's the feature that provides auto tuning (as opposed to 
auto recall of saved settings, which was how the amp was originally built).

Some questions.


1) How useful is the Alpha Max auto-tune feature?

2) The new owner of Alpha says the upgrade kit is no longer available. 
Is there an easy way to add it? That is, are the chips generic? I'm 
guessing that at least one of the two chips is an EPROM. Is it practical 
to buy the chips and copy the firmware from another 87A?

3) Is it worth going to the trouble?  I would use it for my high dipoles 
for 80 and 40M.

Thanks and 73, Jim K9YC