Attn Hams - Amplifier Kits?

[mophead]

Hey all, my father is getting into ham radio. He is looking for a 1KW hf amp, similar to the old Heathkit sb-200 or sb-220. It doesn't have to be those old amps, even solid state is ok. We would prefer a kit of some sort that I could build for him. Problem is I know very very little about RF stuff but I can follow instructions rather well, so a kit would be great.

Any recommendations?

[Doc]

Hey all, my father is getting into ham radio. He is looking for a 1KW hf amp, similar to the old Heathkit sb-200 or sb-220. It doesn't have to be those old amps, even solid state is ok. We would prefer a kit of some sort that I could build for him. Problem is I know very very little about RF stuff but I can follow instructions rather well, so a kit would be great.

Any recommendations?

Oooh, high power RF, be careful!

Apart from the deep, take forever to heal burns; high power RF can do some freaky things to nearby objects.

[mixedgas]

Due to some PUCKED up, "rumored" arrangement with the FCC, there is only one company that gets away on a serious basis selling higher power HF amp kits in the US of A. Everyone else gets busted when CBers convert them to linears.

There are plenty of good plans on the net. Many are old Motorola RF ap notes, and I have most of them in storage, in fact I have all of them in one ROLA databook. I assume you need linear for SSB? What bands?

If you only want 30 watts or so and all band, some easy raw boards are available from various places. If you want more power, in a kit, your heading for Communications Concepts Inc.

There are a lot of designs using switching PSU fets or RF Fets, that are not kits, just well documented plans.

The one company for one stop shopping at 100-200 watts is:

http://www.communication-concepts.com/

Even CCI does not admit they make kits, but they do. Note they are sold by the APP NOTE, not as a unit.

If you want a true "Full Gallon", your looking at going to a hamfest or scratchbuilt, as most vendors only sell assembled units, ie Henry, TenTec.

Otherwise buy the raw parts from Svetlana (tubes) or RFPARTS.com and build your own. Its NOT hard to say 100 watts, after that it gets interesting.

http://www.rfparts.com/tubesvet.html

(Note there are two Svetlana companies in the USA after a trademark dispute, one does audio, the real one does RF, but is hard to find, as they lost in court.)

http://www.rfparts.com/tubesvet.html

Remember a good antenna is worth far more then a hot amplifier.

I need to know more about what you "watt", specification wise.

Steve

[mophead]

Thanks Steve.

He has a Cobra Jr antenna, 80-10 meter, twenty something feet off the ground along with a 100W amp of some sort. Think he's looking for bare minimum of 6-700 watts.

At 1KW, I don't feel comfortable scratch building from a set of plans unless they are "very well documented". I don't know much at all about high power RF and don't have the time to try to get myself up to speed. I would be okay maybe finding an old one at a hamfest and replacing caps and bad parts.

[mixedgas]

Older Sharplan Co2 lasers contain a pair of 300-500 watt triodes as Grounded Grid DC current limiters. I'll ask Bruce if he still has them, since in the Sharplan they run at just a few watts and last forever. He had a few of the tubes at the warehouse from lasers he has scrapped.

Steve

[flecom]

What bands?

11m chicken band

[mophead]

My dad's on anything but 11m.

Last time he was on 11m was when he was drunk, in the truck, in the driveway, on ch14 trying to scare us kids on our walkie-talkie's..... we had no idea.

[jooopy]

Rebuilding an old 1 may be an option. It seems to me I have an old TL922a Kenwood really nice that was taken apart 15 years ago due to a parasitic arc or something like that. It's all parts but was a hot unit in its day. A pair of fresh 3-500z and some patience could probably put it back on the air again one day. Needed at least 1 meter and it's been too many years to remember what else. TL922 was American version but this one was the 922a Japanese v. I'll never do it as I have a working unit and only play with lasers now. I may have a working unit to sell as well and or a homebrew unit set up for 11m. Don't know of any kits around these days.