I wonder how many folks after they saw the heading immediatly clicked on this post ready to fire away with their comments..  :-)

Fred NG3J

Sounds like "the truth" works for AES....Either that or getting paid to post all these posts :-) -- Just an opinion....  :-)

Amen to K5IQ!

Standard business practice in todays world? - maybe

Respected? NEVER....

It's a scam.....

Well, after reading some of the replies, I've noticed a couple of hams stating how "stupid" hams can be when it comes to business 101. Here's my "stupid" overview of what I've just read here and with the pea brain I have, here's my "stupid business" conclusion.

Texas Towers did not fork over $30 and go "above and beyond" what was expected.

Result:

 - Loss of at least $2000 in purchases from N9BC.

 - Loss of present or future customers in N9BC, K5IQ, KC0IWV, and myself NG3J because of this review. What is the average cost of a new HF rig? How about the average of a new VHF/UHF rig w/accessories? Hmmm, multiply that by 4 or more (who knows how many read this review and decided not to deal with TT).

Now WHAT IF TT went "above and beyond" what was expected and PAID the $30?

Result:

 - TT would have sold N9BC an additional $2000 worth of ham gear.

 - TT would have potential customers in KC0IWV, K5IQ, myself NG3J, and those who may have seen this review who decided not to deal with TT.

 - THIS REVIEW WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN POSTED!

Ok, please remember, I'm a stupid ham when it comes to business and also have no common sense. But could someone tell me if TT made money by NOT forking over the extra $30 or did they LOSE money by keeping the $30 in their pocket? Does anyone have a calculator??

Oh, as a consultant, I get to visit many different companies/firms. One thing I've noticed that most of them have in common. I would always see in either their company vision statement or posted on walls, memos, etc, is something along the lines of this:

"Strive to go above and beyond what is expected of you"

"Go the extra 2 miles if you have to"

I think you'll find this kind of thinking in many, if not all of the fortune 500 companies out there.

BOTTOM LINE IS WHAT COUNTS - THAT'S BUSINESS!!

I ran into a similiar situation and here's what I've determined.

I also run an Ameritron AL811H and USE to have a MFJ 989c. I purchased the amp a couple of months ago along with the 989c. I read the reviews for the 989 on eham and found that 90 percent of them are NOT favorable towards the tuner. One of the complaints was that the watt meter was far from accurate. I found this to be the case with mine but not as severe. There were a few other problems with the tuner so I ended up returning it for a full refund and purchased a Palstar AT1500CV (costs about $70 more) which is like night and day compared to the 989c. Now that I have a quality tuner, I hopefully can answer your question.

When I tune the amp, for the most part (depending on the band), I get about 500-600 watts CW tone with 50 watts drive. On 160m (the 989c had big time problems tuning the amp on that band), I'm getting close to 800 watts CW with both plate and grid current at acceptable levels! Remember,watch your plate and grid current. Do not exceed 750ma plate and 200ma grid. Once I tuned up on a particular band with a CW tone output of say 500 watts (50 watts drive), I would switch over to SSB and crank the exciter power up to almost 100 watts. On SSB, there is less of a draw on plate and grid and therefore you can crank up the input drive power to 80-100 watts. On the Palstar tuner, I do not have an average PEP indicator like the 989c does. But on peak swings when talking, I see it up around 700 or so. If I threw a watt meter that calculates average PEP, I'm sure I'd see it hovering around 700-800 watts consistantly.

Here's something you may want to think about also. I've read in many reviews of the 811H that if you replace the 811A tubes with Svetlana 572B's, the amp would run much cooler with some seeing a 100-150 watts more on PEP. The downside to this is that the tubes are not cheap. I believe the total cost to change over to the 572B's is around $300-$400. Don't quote me on this, but that's a ball park figure that I've heard. I'll probably switch over to the 572B's but only after I've worked the 811A's to it's life expectancy.

Hope this helps. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

- Fred NG3J