David, I hope when Elecraft comes out with their amp that it has features like my Acom 2000A - if there is an arc, high swr or overdriven the amp shuts down quickly without damage to it. When this happens I can quickly check to see if I am on the wrong antenna, too much drive or a problem with an antenna/feedline. When this happens I am still able to run barefoot.
With most of my rigs over the years I have used a power mosfet to key the amp. With the Kenwoods and Icoms I have bypassed their amp keying relay to pick up a quicker transmit-on signal from the rig. This way I have a better chance of the amp's relay pulled in before RF gets to the amp. Some rigs put out an RF spike at key-down. This causes the amp to kick out. None of the rigs I have had so far have had this problem. I don't use the mosfet keying with my K2 since it really doesn't have fast QSK. Hopefully the K3 will have QSK as good as the TS-930 and TS-940. 73, N2TK, Tony -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Cutter Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:33 AM To: Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy Cc: Elecraft Discussion List Subject: Re: [Elecraft] linear amp shutdown (was ALC) Geoff With so many combinations of rig and amplifier a 'standard' would be good, (the Collins ALC started it all I understand) but in its absence each operator needs to make provision for their own station protection. With the advent of solid state amplifiers there was a chance to make a new standard to help us all, perhaps someone knows if this was taken up . It would be good to know how folks have covered themselves with various rig/amplifier combinations and I wonder how the Elecraft linears will do this. I see the SPE linear has 3 stages of protection for instance: SIMPLE = audible alarm, SERIOUS = switch to standby and FATAL = complete shutdown, but these do not shutdown the driving transmitter as far as I can see. After all, running barefoot is better than nothing in a contest, so, shutting down the transmitter is not always desirable. David G3UNA _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
