Linear Amp Price Question

Actual truth= power must be boosted 4X to boost the perceived signal at the OTHER receiver by ONE S-Unit. 6 DB= one S-unit. SO. If you start with the usual 4 watts, it takes a boost to 16 watts to = ONE S-unit. Then to get another S-unit, you gotta go to 64 watts. If the other receiver was receiving the original signal at S-3, the 16 watts gets you only to S-4, then 64W gets you to S-5. Now we gotta invest 256 watts to get up to S-5, then look what happens next. To get us up to S-6, you're gonna have to invest 1.024 watts!!!! Finally, (we have to end this somewhere ), it takes 4,096 watts to get us up to S-7. What did we gain in ACTUAL signal? FOUR lousy S-units louder than the human ear would hear at S-3. It quickly becomes apparent that achieving this "gain" takes a WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT expenditure of power, the tradeoff being INTERFERENCE AND BLEED-OVER to other stations. Did you ever wonder why the Feds don't want CB users USING amplifiers? There's your answer!

1. wasteful, inefficient expenditure of power
2. causes MORE noise and hash
3. creates massive interference to other users
4. interferers with other services and frequencies
5. user inexperience and lack of understanding of RF

IF users adhered to the 4 watt level, used some simple courtesies and
procedures, the ability to use CB would be greatly enhanced. This actually was the case in the early days when operators used callsigns,
made their transmissions brief, stoof by for other users, and exercized courtesy. I, for example, had a 4 watt, Raytheon, 6 channel set in the 60's beside my bed. Antenna? A Radio Shack back-of-set plug-in antenna. We had a small group in town that talked most nights. I COULD TALK FROM ONE END OF TOWN TO THE OTHER (ABOUT 8 MILES) on that Raytheon, and I didn't need a "leenyar" to do it!

Today, an amplifier is a substitute for certain anatomical deficiencies, and makes up for some lack in grey matter. These are the rambos, the losers, who must use a radio to make up for their own shortcomings.

Gadfly

 

I run a connex 4600 turbo. With the little 150 watt output, and duel black widow antennaes, on a good day i can talk to the CB shop from my driveway....46 miles away

 

As opposed to making up for your "shortcomings" by making sweeping statements with no basis in fact?

 

The basis in fact is LONG ESTABLISHED ELECTRONIC THEORY PUBLISHED IN MANUALS, JOURNALS, AND TRAINING MATERIAL USED BY UNIVERSITIES, TRAINING INSTITUTIONS AND TRADE SCHOOLS, TAUGHT BY DEGREED PROFESSIONALS. It is even proven in lab conditions in times long past. *I* don't have to defend a word of it; it's there for those of sufficient gray matter to find on their own. The use of high power, often wasteful in its actual result, is often like a placebo--a sugar pill---that makes the user think he is doing much more than he actually is!, But it "satisfies" (like that cigarette just after lunch) while actually doing harm.

I can understand why a civilian who uses radio as a hobby would take offense; he has no training in this stuff, and we see it from an entirely different standpoint. Again, that is the very reason the law is what it is, both for CB, ham, and commercial radio. Nobody likes to be told he doesn't know what he's doing, but that is actually the truth of the matter.

I told you the actual, electronic theory for how a given signal is heard by the average human ear. 6 DB = 1 S-unit. It takes 4 X a given RF level to CAUSE the human ear to DETECT an increase in signal (1 S-unit). It's just the way it is .

Gadfly

 

Well as much as I don't like most hams because of their "holier than thou" attitudes that most of them have Gadfly is actually correct.