CorvAircraft> linear amp

[Dave Morris "BigD"]

Actually I'm willing to bet most ham linears are totally 
legal.  First of all it is rather difficult and expensive to build 
one that puts out more than 2000 Watts PEP that we are licensed to 
transmit.  (One of my homebuilt amplifiers had a 3000 Volt power 
supply that could source 1.5 Amps and seriously kill you even after 
it had been powered off for several hours.)  And secondly hams have 
always been very law-abiding and self-policing, much like the 
experimental aircraft builder community.  Not willing to risk the 
money and time they put into something to blow it all just for a 
moment's silliness.  It's the CB units that were almost universally 
illegal, and one reason why the FCC finally just threw in the towel 
and left the wild west known as the citizens band to its own devices.

Whenever you're contemplating adding an amplifier, one of the rules 
of thumb is, if you can shout farther than you can hear, you're 
wasting your money on an amplifier.  All you'll be doing is ruining 
the day for all the people in airports farther out, who are sharing 
your frequency, but whom you cannot even hear.

Dave Morris
N5UP

At 01:31 PM 4/17/2006, you wrote:
>FWIW, back in my ham radio days a linear was known as a "foot warmer".  They
>were used to boost signal strength (usually illegally, above the allowable
>amount for your rating).  There is a reason that they were called that, back
>in the vacuum tube days they put out a lot of heat.  Not sure how much the
>solid state units put out these days but you probably don't want to stuff
>one someplace back behind the panel where it's hot.
>
>Also a curiosity, back when I got my pilot's license you were also supposed
>to get an FCC "Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit".  I still have
>mine, dated July 31, 1981.
>
>Oscar Zuniga
>San Antonio, TX
>mailto: taildrags at hotmail.com
>website at http://www.flysquirrel.net
>
>
>
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