From a purely manufacturing point of view, it's a lot easier to make a solid
state amplifier, particularly with surface mount parts and flow soldering on
a production line. Thousands can be made with high accuracy and
repeatability and that alone reduces a major cost centre which is the
manufacturing labour. Cheaper, more reliable devices and magnetics come
close behind but I think design has to be more clever and equipment in the
design process is more expensive to ensure stability. However, an rf
transistor is the fastest fuse on 3 legs ! It's a lot easier to let the
smoke out.
David
G3UNA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Buller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <elecraft@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:01 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] Solid State Amps
When I attended Dayton this year and reading the magazines, I see there is
now a great interest in solid state amps.
I thought that these amps were...well...not as efficient as tube amps thus
not being attractive to hams. I guess we wanted BIG iron for an amp.
Ameritron has two amps out for quite some time...the 500 and 600 with the
600 now coming with a switching PS. It seems people who own the 600 watt
model like them very much.
Even "E" has the contesters contest amp and it is solid state. So, what
has changed? Have the SS Amps gotten more efficient? Higher voltages?
What effects the efficiency of these amps where now there seems to be a
market for the Japanese and the Italians.
Now most radios provide 100 watts output using transistors and the tube
finals in rigs have long been gone. So, is this just a natural evolution
of amplifiers or is some new technological breakthrough happened in high
powered solid state amplifiers?
Lee - K0WA
In our day and age it seems that Common Sense is in short supply. If you
don't have any Common Sense - get some Common Sense and use it. If you
can't find any Common Sense, ask for help from somebody who has some
Common Sense. Is Common Sense devine?
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