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Re: NEW LA-1K OWNER UPDATE
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VE3PP Congratulations on your new LA1K. I’ve had mine for around 4 years now. I gotta say I did have some growing pains with this solid state amp. I used to have a HealthKit sb220 and this solid state amp surpasses the old sb220 in every area.? I find it funny when I hear silly hams tuning up their tube amps and not using a dummy load. Long gone are those days with these new solid state finals. I use my amp on all the bands it’s designed for and get 1000 watts out no problems. Rock solid amp. I wonder how many hours/years it will do me good for. I think it will be comparable to buying a modern radio. Who knows. But one thing I can say is, I use my amp a lot. I now have over 100k contacts (estimate easily over 20k with the LA1K). I been contesting with this amp and many hours rock solid performer. I push this amp to 900-1000w With 40w drive. On 15m and 17m for some reason I have to back down the drive to around 25w to get 1000w out. I guess that’s where it’s most efficient.? I don’t wanna get into semantics here but I only use my trusty heath kit sm-2140 which I have checked with a bird and it’s close enough for me, the govt and most others. I use the 50w power out restriction in the ftdx5000 so I never overdrive the LA1K. I have at times, due to ice on some of my warm dipoles swr as high as 2.2 and the amp still works fine. Quite amazing. Most of the time swr is down around 1.1 - 1.5.? I don’t worry about using full 1000w out. It’s made to handle it.? 4 years of hard contesting full out. No problem. The hottest it’s gotten is 67C. I back off for a few minutes it goes back to 45C. Nice.? Using 240v here. There are some around here that think other amps are better. Maybe they are. This isn’t a debate. I personally don’t care. I got what I paid for and would buy it again. I’m happy with my purchase. I got along fine with Mark at Palstar with my growing pains. I had a bad capacitor which I had to return the amp the first year.? Doesn’t mean I need to trash the amp. No problem, that’s what warranty is for. It’s been good since. Off topic here, but I also have 2 high end amplifiers for my home theatre and had a bad capacitor on my centre channel there too within a year period. I’m ?a believer of if something is going to happen to a capacitor or resistor or any electrical part, it will appear right after the build. The rest is just from age and heat.? Just sharing to you my experiences.? I wish you and others reading this a Merry Christmas and many fine hours with your LA1K. 73 Barry VE6UM On Mon, Dec 25, 2023 at 10:03 <davenlr@...> wrote: VE3PP |
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