Slava; There is no tuner inside the KPA500---that's why the KAT500 came about; it is optional to the amp. As for it being a must have I would say that depends on your antennas and operating habits. If you have resonant antennas on the bands you operate you can easily get by without the KAT500. I have a K3, P3 and KPA500 and when I was operating my antenna farm in Hawaii the setup was great for all but one of my antennas that had an SWR of more than 1.7>1. It would have been nice to have the autotuner but wasn't particularly necessary for me. I liked the concept of a 600-650 watt solid state automatic band-switching amp so much (and the same size as the K3) that I dumped my 1200-watt Commander 6 meter amp that I had cherished since new so that I could buy the KPA and have half the power (3db less) on six meters but about 7 or 8db more power on HF as well. Seemed like a very acceptable tradeoff to me and I don't look back having done so. Mine consistently cranks out 600-650 watts PEP on most of the bands without a problem and is also very quiet---silent, in fact, 95% of the time. The fan settings are adjustable in the menu, too. Nice. Building the KPA500 was even easier than the K3 and every bit as much fun. I can recommend one wholeheartedly. As far as I know; the potential for a KPA-1500 is about the same as for a K4; practically nil!
73, Jeff, NH7RO EL18 Texas Gulf Coast [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
