[TenTec] Solid State Amps

[Ken Brown]

Mark Erbaugh wrote:

>The amp situation is a shame because I currently have an SDR-1000 radio with
>under 1 watt output. I would really like to buy an amp that would take the
>power output to the 20+ watt level, but I'm going to have to jump through
>hoops to do so. I don't have the skill or desire to homebrew one without
>some sort of kit.
>  
>
Hi Mark,

If you search eBay in the Ham Radio Amplifiers catagory you will find 
plenty of amplifiers for sale that were clearly built to be used on 11 
meters by unlicensed and lawless "CB" operators. Since these guys do not 
abide by FCC part 95, and typically don't even stay inside the frequency 
limits of the CB service channels, I wonder why they are even called 
CBers. Anyway, these amplifiers all seem to have monikers that must 
appeal to people who feel inadequate in some way, and having one of 
these amplifiers makes them feel more masculine or something. Most of 
them do not use transistors, but rather a device called a pill. The more 
pills the better. The pills have part numbers just like RF power 
transistors. I have often wondered if any of these things would actually 
be a good starting point for a medium power HF amplifier that could be 
driven by a QRP rig. I suspect not, but then at least you would get a 
heat sink and some pills. If someone were to modify one of these for use 
as a ham band amplifier, I'm sure at the bare minimum  a bandpass filter 
for each amateur band of operation would have to be added.

Ken N6KB