I found a Pride 100 amplifer for $50 (GOOGLE search on "mobile
linear"). "80-10M Amateur Amplifier" or some such legend is
silkscreened on the front panel; nominal output is 100W (not sure
exactly how that's measured) for 7-8 watts in. The gent I'm buying
it from says it's one of the earlier solid-state amps. Seems to use
the MRF454 (which he tells me he replaced not long ago). I'm very
curious to see if it has any filtering on the output. If not, I'm
thinking of getting the filter kit for the power-MOSFET amp in the
ARRL Handbook and using the rig's ACC band data output for an
automatic switch. A'course, I'll be using an antenna "tuner" with
it, so that'll also help cut down on spurious emissions.
There was a Palomar amp and an Italian (RF Construzione???) amp on
Ebay yesterday -- so much for Ebay's touted adherence to FCC regs.
Why an amp? 'Cause the '817 is my only rig & I want QRO ability for
traffic handling on 80M, and Bonnie says ya need ~20W for good NVIS
results also. The '817, an ATX, a short wire dipole w/twinlead, and
NorCal's BLT will go backpacking with me.
FWIW on the antenna end, an untuned 20M inverted-V at about 12 ft.
got 5-9 contacts from central Ohio to Florida, Minnesota, and
Nebraska with NO effort. But the OM in Spain, unfortunately,
couldn't hear me! ;) ('tho he did admit his antenna system was
optimized for the US west coast)
