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Re: [Amps] Sad State of the Hobby

To: Lee Bahr <L@w0vt.us>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Sad State of the Hobby
From: George Fremin III <geoiii@kkn.net>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 09:26:13 -0800
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>
On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 09:08:13PM -0600, Lee Bahr wrote:
> A friend of mine has been getting himself interested in building a super 
> Full legal limit solid state amplifier.  What is catching his attention 
> are the relatively low cost high power FETs available out there.

I too have been attracted to doing this myself. 

> at the lack of good info on the subject.  Stuff there is 10 to 15 years 
> old.  I did a search at the ARRL web site and they have a 1000 watt amp 
> article in their QEX magazine but that was way back around 2002 or so.  
> OLD TECHNOLOGY! What is this?  Nothing for 15 years?

True - although I have been able to find a fair amount of info 
in my web searches and there is more all the time. There seems to
be quite a bit out there about using these devices at VHF and UHF
so you might want to expand your searches to include that as there
can be some useful information.  

I have been thinking of building an amp for HF but not being an 
electroincs wiz I have been unsure on how or what I would do. 

W6PQL will sell you some things that make this much eaiser and 
it seems his prices are hard to beat for what you get.  He solves 
a lot of problems.  

http://w6pql.com/

There is a kit out there that looks like it would be fun. 

http://rf-kit.de/en/2k_Kit.php

Both of these and more have been talked about on this list.

Finally last spring I got up the nerve to jump into putting together 
an amp for 222 mhz.  In some sense I cheated a bit and the real guts
of the amp was a power module from surplus that I got but it sure saved
me a lot of time.  It will do 1500 watts and works well.  I bought a few
boards from W6PQL and got a front panel from Front panel express and built
it in an old rack mount server case so I could slide it in and out of my 
rack.  I got hints and advice from several folks on the internet that 
had done this before me and also from a friend so it turned out to be prety
easy to build up. Worked great. I wish I had taken more photos of the 
various steps but here are a few:

https://goo.gl/photos/ozwrHabvtASpa4HFA

I just now starting on a project for 70cm and will be doing it in much 
the same way.  I have bought the RF pallet already built and tested 
on a heat spreader / heat sink from W6PQL along with a few more parts. 
I have started gattering all the other parts and will get a box to 
put it all in and make 1KW amp for 432mhz.  

I will try to document this build a bit more as I go. 


-- 
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii@kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr


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