While I appreciate your attempt to deduce my motives, my questions had
nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with business
practices that (seem to) include ripping off another company's
intellectual property and then competing with them using derivatives of
their own design and selling at a discounted rate. It wouldn't matter to
me where the two companies were located - it's just bad practice (if the
stories I've heard are correct) and I'll make my choice of amp based on
more than just price. For whatever that's worth.
73, Duane (with an Alpha 99 in the shack)
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 18:21:39 -0800 "NJ0IP" <Rick@DJ0IP.de> writes:
> The ACOMs were tested by Peter Hart of RSGB and his comment was that
> they
> are one of best amps he's ever seen.
>
> In my opinion, there is almost no difference between the quality of
> an Alpha
> and the quality of an ACOM. My contesting club (BCC) probably has
> about 25
> of each type and they are all good amps, but we have experienced
> problems
> with both (as with any and every vendor's products).
>
> If you compare Alpha's top automatic (legal limit) amp with ACOM's
> top
> automatic (legal limit) amp, the difference (to the best of my
> knowledge) is
> found in two areas:
> 1. The Alpha uses PIN diodes for T/R switching and the ACOM uses
> vacuum
> relays
> 2. The ACOM uses more sophisticated fault monitoring, especially
> with this
> ACR FAULT that is currently pestering many OM. The ARC FAULT on the
> ACOM
> has nothing to do with tube flashovers, but rather flags a condition
> where
> RF is seen at its input when the relay is not settled in the TX
> position.
>
> Duane, sorry but your patriotism is blurring your vision. Other
> mothers
> also have pretty daughters! I won't go into the details of the
> differences
> in the monitoring circuits on this open forum but can forward stuff
> offline.
>
> GUYS, BELIEVE ME, the "right people" in the "right places" are
> working very
> hard on this issue. It's "front burner" and I believe we are very
> close to
> confirming the actual cause of the ARC FAULT problem. We already
> have a few
> work-arounds, but they aren't fixing the problem, they're just
> enabling the
> two radios to work together.
>
> We currently have a very strong indication of what is actually
> causing the
> problem and are having a couple of other hams try it to confirm. If
> this
> turns out to be the case, then you will understand why some people
> are
> having problems with this and others are not.
>
> I am not (yet) going to discuss what we have found (sorry, not even
> offline). It should be confirmed in a day or two and perhaps one or
> both of
> the companies involved will want to make a statement. I don't want
> to take
> the wind out of their sails.
>
> In answer to the speculation about whether the problem occurs when
> keying
> with the loop or the single cable, the answer is "both and neither".
> We
> found that we could key the ACOM permanently (externally) without
> any T/R
> keying cable between the two boxes and then just apply RF from the
> Orion and
> the problem still occurs. It hasn't anything to do with the keying
> circuit.
>
> Please stay tuned.
>
> 73
> Rick
>
>
>
>
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>
>
Duane Calvin, AC5AA
Austin, Texas
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