Al, I saw your question and saved it, as I knew you would be getting much better responses than I can give. I have five amplifiers, as I tend to like building stations.
You received the responses I expected. Grounding and bonding are indeed important and great information is found on K9YC's page as well as the ARRL publication "Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur". Yes, mix 31 ferrites are your friend. There are many sources; I bought mine from Pro Audio. Sadly, many consumer devices are very poorly designed for RF environments. Some problems can be mitigated, some not. I do not know if anyone has talked about using a well-tuned antenna system, keeping SWR low and RF out of the shack. I am fortunate that the only interference to devices in my home occur on 160, but I'm sure most of that is because I'm using an antenna similar to a G5RV fed with 450 ohm twin lead, I short the twin lead and then use an UNUN and antenna tuner to achieve resonance. (?Marconi "T"?) I do have a counterpoise. I know many do not talk about amplifiers as they are shamed for using high power. Whatever. I saw someone at the 2019 Dayton Hamvention with a shirt that said "1500 watts - 1 watt = QRP!" No shame there. The one thing I do know, the problems that you can get from a high-power home installation do not even come close to running high power mobile. That WAS a nightmare. The one universal thing about amplifiers is that when the doorbell rings, the amp gets turned off! Good luck-this is an interesting journey! '73 de JIM N2ZZ -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net <elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Al Lorona Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2022 11:06 AM To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Running high power Thank you for all your responses. I did not mean my question to solicit the thousands of ways of solving this problem, but merely a poll of hams' experiences running high power. Based on all of the private and public responses I received, it's about 50% who've had problems with consumer equipment and high power. If the problems are caused by simple RF overload of the piece of equipment, I've never understood why balanced or unbalanced antenna systems make any difference. If your 1500 W signal induces a large interferer on the circuitry of your internet modem or garage door opener, the device has no idea whether you're using a Yagi or a dipole or a vertical or whatever. It's just being overloaded because it's in the near field of the antenna and has very poor rejection and filtering. You could have the best-balanced antenna system in the world and still get into a poorly-shielded modem, couldn't you? The interference isn't coming in through the wires, it's coming in through the air! I tend to resonate with K9YC's assertion that there are a whole lot of devices out there that are designed badly, susceptible to the slightest overload. When I look at my own situation I notice that I have tons of devices that were completely unaffected. My telephones, lights, garage doors, overhead fans, smart thermostat, and many others-- all of which have RF circuitry to one degree or another-- were never bothered. Taking the FM radio in the kitchen as an example, you could make the argument that since its whole purpose in life is to receive weak signals, that it's particularly vulnerable to a large HF signal. But not a single person mentioned that they've ever heard themselves coming through their FM radio. I must have the only cheap table radio in America! Anyway, I envy those of you who told me, "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." R, Al W6LX ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to jboehne...@yahoo.com ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
