[CQ-Contest] modest proposal ...up to 200w

[Matt Murphy]

With the likely FCC rule change permitting higher gain for amateur
amplifiers and modern high power MOSFETs, I'd actually expect to see more
new HF transceivers manufactured with only 15-35W output capability...
plenty to generate legal limit from most of the newer amplifiers, and
plenty for the JT modes and only a few dB down from 100W without the power,
size, and heat dissipation requirements of a 100W or 200W transceiver.

In terms of the cost of solid state QRO operation, the non-MOSFET
components of an amplifier or amplifier+ATU seem to be fairly comparable at
the 100W and 500W level, with a bit more cost added above 1KW.

100W power levels seem to be an artifact of linear power supplies used on
HF, not a cost or engineering complexity limit.

The above comment may be completely inaccurate or off base. Please take it
with a grain of salt.

73,
Matt NQ6N

On Tue, Oct 11, 2016 at 5:18 AM, Ed Sawyer <sawyered at earthlink.net> wrote:

> In addition to all ARRL HF contests being 150W for Low Power, the CQ WW 160
> contests are also 150W.
>
>
>
> The extra 50W matters in very marginal QSO attempts like 160 and on 10 M
> when the signals are on the noise floor.  Having run Low Power exclusively
> for 11 years from 2004 - 2015, I can tell you I have experimented with
> this.
> I used to have a 200W FT1000 Mark V and a 100W radio for radio 2 and
> changed
> it to 2 x Mark Vs just to be able to run 150W on both radios in those
> contests that allow 150W.  It matters.
>
>
>
> Ed  N1UR
>
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