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

[Kelly Taylor]

I think the market will dictate what amateur transceiver manufacturers produce, not technology. The greatest tech in the world is useless in a business plan if nobody wants it.

The demand by the bulk of the market is for 100w radios. Not everyone wants to buy an amplifier, and even those who do have amplifiers don’t always turn them on.

I could see a manufacturer such as Elecraft creating a package, however: A 35-watt radio and matching amplifier, perhaps, particularly if they could engineer certain marketable technical advantages into a system with less power from the exciter and more gain from the amplifier. 

But I think it’s still a niche market for stand-alone radios with less than 100w output. 

73, kelly, ve4xt, 




> On Oct 11, 2016, at 10:58 AM, Ed Sawyer <sawyered at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Matt, Interesting discussion.  There is certainly no evidence of that in the marketplace that I see.  But in concept, it makes sense.
> 
> 
> 
> “only a few dB down” in the low power contesting world, is fatal, from a competitive standpoint.  After all, this is a contesting reflector and JT is not a contesting mode.
> 
> 
> 
> 73
> 
> 
> 
> Ed  N1UR
> 
> 
> 
> From: Matt Murphy [mailto:matt at nq6n.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2016 11:33 AM
> To: sawyered at earthlink.net
> Cc: cq-contest
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] modest proposal ...up to 200w
> 
> 
> 
> 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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