ALC is on our list of things to implement. The FlexWire jack will be the source for ALC. We expect to have a FlexWire ALC adapter sometime this summer.
John P. Basilotto W5GI Chief Operating Officer Marketing and Sales Office 512 535-5266 FAX 512 233-5143 www.flex-radio.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Lux Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:52 PM To: W5CUL Cc: 'Flex reflector'; 'TOM BLACKWELL'; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Flexradio] MFJ external automatic antenna tuners Quoting W5CUL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on Tue 20 May 2008 09:27:43 PM PDT: > Jim brings up a very valid point; will there be any ALC in the future for > the 5000 series radios? > > I currently use an AL-80B, and by no means can reach the 1500W ceiling. But > my peaks can and have momentarily and unintentionally reached if not > exceeded the max rating of the 3-500Z tube while using both my SDR-1000 and > 5000A. And it should be noted that there are plenty of others out there > that run 8877's or dual 3CX800A's, and even higher output tubes that can > reach that 1500W ceiling easily and go much higher; only on a dummy load, > right ;) Standard practice in the non-ham community for an amplifier that's not designed to be integrated into a system (where level setting would be part of the integration) is that the amplifier would have the appropriate level/gain management hardware built in. That is, nobody would depend on some external device, over which the amp maker has no control, protecting the amp. <snip> I thought one of the major purposes behind > ALC was to control the peaks, protect the amp, keep it legal? So why not > have ALC in the 5000? For precisely the reasons you outline above.. how do you calibrate it? Do you have separate settings for each band? What if the guy running the amp retunes the input or output networks? If the operator chooses to use heavy ALC in order to > gain some RF compression, then he/she may have chosen poorly, and will > probably hear about it on the bands. But why deny the rest of the populace > who would use it in moderation to control the input to the Amp, thus its > output? I would say that the development dollars/hours are better spent on generic capabilities improving the radio, not on trying to accommodate missing functionality in an amazingly wide variety of amplifiers. It's one thing for a manufacturer to tie an ALC between a transceiver and amplifier, both made by the same mfr (because the mfr is essentially the system integrator, and controls both sides of the interface).. it's another to ask that sufficient flexibility be put into a system to allow any amp to be appropriately controlled. Sure, hams do it all the time, connecting a brand X amp to a brand Y radio, but I'll bet a lot of them are compromises in one sense or another. As you say, though, it's a philosophical decision on the part of the developers of the software, and on the hardware as well (e.g. how will you get that signal from the amp into the PC to be processed?.. add a USB or RS232 interfaced A/D converter?) Jim, W6RMK _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
