In answer to the question about which amps for SO2R, I run a pair of
ACOM 2000A's.
Good:
- Very reliable
- Tube cost relatively low
- Full power. Loafs at 1500W out. Many of the "full power" amps are as
low as 1100 W on 24.9 and 28 MHz.
- Remote head. My two heads take almost no room on the op desk. The
amps themselves are in a closet.
- Very complete instrumentation and fault protection
- Amazingly quiet
- Very fast band changing. 10M to 160M in less than a second.
- Decent interface software if you don't want to send one dit to make it
change bands
- Excellent service (Thanks, Array Solutions)
- Legal. This means a lot to me personally. You might be able to go to
1800 or 1900 Watts with manual tuning. Manual tuning is a horrendous
PIA however. The amp auto-tunes to 1500W. This is not a 2 tube Alpha
77 or a Henry 8K or an EMcom 3K, 4K or 5K. Its a sad commentary that
people using those amps do so without shame.
Bad:
- Price (and good luck finding a used one, although it does happen -
rarely). The other big amps that are very good are also very expensive.
- 150 second warm up. Not a big deal.
GL & 73,
Hal
N4GG
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