[CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max

[john at kk9a.com]

Alpha 87A's are pretty inexpensive now. I am not sure how it works without
Alpha Max, I owned one with Alpha Max and it tuned very nicely. My comment
regarding this amp is that they are very expensive to repair if you send
it back to the manufacture so be cautious what you purchase.

John KK9A


To:	cq-contest <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Subject:	[CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max
From:	Jim Brown <k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to:	k9yc at arrl.net
Date:	Tue, 4 Oct 2016 13:47:09 -0700

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