[CQ-Contest] Alpha 87A Alpha Max

[Charles Harpole]

87a amps are cheap for a good reason.  They do not age well.  Own one only
if you really enjoy fixing yours monthly, if parts can be found.
Owner of two at same time, sold long ago.

Note...... band change/tune too slow for SO2R, maybe $3000 is too much.
73, Charly

On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 8:15 PM, john at kk9a.com <john at kk9a.com> wrote:

> 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
>
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-- 
Charly, HS0ZCW