Linear Amp Question

Those class C competition boxes splatter all over the place! IMO, I think you have it backwards, those competition boxes try to squeeze every last watt out of the pills, while the mass produced AB class Texas Stars and Palomars don't produce as much power per pill, but the power they put out is (more) on frequency. I was under the impression that a Texas Star is something a self-respecting ham might use.

 

To the best of my knowledge X-Force and I'm pretty sure DaveMade offer more than just class C boxes (actually I know X-Force offers more).....I think some of those are also for key down comps which I never got involved with nor do I really understand anyway....Those it seems in theory would be the ones driving the snot out of them trying for every last watt of power...

Off topic but....I'm about 3/4 mile from the TA in Binghamton as the crow flies and you should see the scope on my 756 Pro II when I drop down to 27.185 and listen......omg what a mess those radio make !!

I did my share of skip shooting back in the day with a 2970DX (2 pill) driving a Magna Force 1000 (6 pill) on 11m....made a lot of contacts on 27.385 LSB for sure..

 

You're right about the mess-I would guess that a good 70% or radios that have had a cb shop in them modulate over 100%. I guess when you said "competition box" that's immediately what came to mind, is a keydown competition. Do you run that ICOM in your truck or is that where you live? Is that your truck in your avatar?

 

I have the Icom set up as a base w/G5RV Jr or an Imax 2k for 10m and I'm running a FT-7900R in the Jeep for 2m....still trying to find the time to study and get up to General...

The truck in my avatar I took off truckpaper dot com, I got out of the O/O bizz back in 2001...was driving for a small outfit that is leased to Landstar Ranger for the 6.5 years, just quit about 1.5 week ago..not finding much out there now just can't bring myself to get in a 65mph truck after running un-governed for so long !!

 

Yep, 27.385 is channel 38. Try this for a brief class description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_amplifier

Notice that it says class C amps aren't linear and are only suitable for constant envelope signals...Your Palomar is a class AB1. Knowing all this stuff isn't necessary, I just dork out on this stuff sometimes.

Are you still running that skipshooter antenna? I saw you ask a question about changing to a Wilson in another thread. Just curious what your setup is.

 

sorry about the thread jack bro I'm unemployed and bored !!
yes on the 27.385 and 38 LSB, when the skip starts rolling most 11m SSB'ers will head to that freq or channel to start..

I'll defer to Josh on explaining the amps as I have forgotten much of the technical stuff over the years.. LOL

ETA- Josh is a faster typer !!

 

I really don't understand the class stuff that well myself-just enough to understand that a class C amp isn't "linear" in that it changes the signal in addition to amplifying it. I've seen a good write up about it somewhere on a ham's page, but I don't remember where. GP, I looked up that Magna Force you had, and it's a class B, for what that's worth.

 

X-Force went and dropped the Magna Force line a while back, now its called TNT I think ?? I aslo ran a 4-pill Magna Force 600 for a while another really good SSB amp.....man I spent some cash on that stuff back in the day...