I've never seen smooth bore PL-259s.  Sounds like they are erred in manufacturing.

I've never had a problem screwing the PL-259 onto RG-8.  As WB2WIK said, the threads are perfect for the outer jacket of PL-259.  The braid connection is then completed by soldering through the holes closer to the "working end".

AM

I looked at the Worth-More page.  Very sad.  The photos of the amplifiers show mediocre build quality.  There's no shielding whatsoever betweent the PA stages and the filters (at least the amps have filters).  I'd bet these amps do not meet FCC specs for harmonics.

Also, it's scary to NOT see IMD specs.  Our crowded bands are in dreadful shape because of the amount of splattery-IMD products from poorly-built amps.  The fact this this website gives no specifications for spectral purity suggests that the spectral purity is poor.  He gets 300W from a pair of 2SC2879 devices.  Having done that myself, I can guarantee that the intermod is terrible - that's too much power from those transistors.  They will survive, no question, but they'll be generating "gook" many kHz wide.

Also, note that the amplifiers are all RF keyed.  That is prohibited by the FCC if an amp is going to be certificated.

His claim "Sales Pending FCC Type Acceptance" is pure fiction.  The FCC dropped the "Type Acceptance" nomenclature several years ago, replacing it with "certificated", and it's a new process.  And, with RF-activated keying, the FCC will NOT approve these amps.

It is fairly clear that he will accept orders today, in violation of FCC rules.

I would not buy one of these.

AM

General-purpose accessories like tuners and power supplies are usually best acquired from non-rig vendors.  Freed from the constraint of high marketing costs and the need to make them visually match the rig, companies like LDG and Astron can put their money into making the product better.

Go for the LDG.  You can pay for it by replacing the IC-718 with a less expensive but far superior-performing IC-735.

AM

There is no neutralization on the L-4B.  In general, ground grid amplifiers don't have neutralizing schemes.  Neutralizing such an amplifier is difficult, because the cathode voltage (input) and the anode voltage (output) are in-phase.  So, if someone DID place a "neutralizing" capacitor between anode and cathode, they'd make an oscillator.

If the cathode is grounded, and the grid is driven, then neutralization is done between plate and grid.

Neutralizing a grounded-grid amplifier requires a special broadband RF transformer as well as a neutralizing capacitor.  But this should not be required.  The whole point of making the amplifier grounded-grid is to eliminate the need for neutralization.

If a grounded-grid amplifier oscillates, it is usually becuase the grid-grounding system is poorly thought out or something has failed.  As long as there are no component failures, there should not be oscillations.

WA4PTZ, what do you mean by "even swing when dipping the plate"?  I have been designing and building amplifiers in broadcast and ham applications for years, and have never heard anything called "even swing".

AM

Terry,

Put the antenna up exactly as you described.  Here's the real way to think about it: If that's the highest, and straightest that you can do, then it's better than no antenna, and it's better than an attic-mounted antenna.

I have worked plenty of DX with worse antennas than you are describing.

If the feedpoint is 30 feet high, then you'll do OK for DX on 20 meters and higher frequencies.

AC5E, can you explain how you arrived at the feedpoint impedance when we do not know what frequency he plans to use?

There is no need to do any modelling if you have no choice in how to mount the antenna.  

At 30 feet off the ground, the antenna won't really have any directional characteristics at frequencies below about 21 MHz.

Based on years and years of using low dipoles, often bent, here are my predictions:

160 meters - you'll be able to work others in your state on CW.  SSB will be difficult, as will be anything outside your own state.

80 meters - SSB will be difficult, although the use of an amplifier will allow you to check into most traffic nets.  Figure you can make QSOs in your state and adjoining states readily.  CW should be OK for coast-to-coast.  You will not be able to work everybody you can hear, though.

40 meters - you should be able to work everybody you can hear.  From Ohio, 10PM at night on the low end of 40 meters, Europe should be easy and regular on CW.  On SSB in crowded band conditions, you might wish for an amplifier.

30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10 - you should be able to work any station you hear, no amplifier needed.  You won't be the first to break pileups.

For this dipole, the low 30 feet of height is more limiting than the included angle.  Even a tribander at 30 feet isn't that good.  It's not just about transmitting, you won't hear much of the DX that those with antennas at 50 feet are working.

Due to physical restrictions on my lot, I could erect a full-size 80 and 40 meter dipole at 25 feet height.  Or a compromised-height antenna at 45 feet.  I tried both.  A full-sized 40 meter dipole at 25 feet was far inferior to a 1/3-size dipole at 45 feet.

Whatever else happens, get as much height as you can!

AM

Friend, I may not have quite got you right, as I have no flippin' idea what point you are making with "Three Ameritrons and one china" - what on earth does that mean?

Nonetheless, tuning an amp for SSB is relatively easy.  There are really only two steps:

1)  Tune for CW
2)  Switch to SSB

Now, for power output, remember that unless you have a specially-designed peak reading meter, you cannot properly read SSB power.  And the way that two non-peak meters read on SSB will never be the same as each other.  You can't even really generate particularly good rules of thumb.

I am fortunate to have access to excellent test equipment and have made some comparisons between CW and SSB for a few different installations.  What I have found is that if I tune for, say, 1kW on CW, then switch to SSB, about 250 watts is the most I should ever see on an average-reading meter.  That's when using a rig that's got a lot of compression.  If the rig has little compression, then the average power will be less.

If you can whistle and get "good" power, then the amp is tuned correctly.  

Too many hams are misled by this and run the mic gain too high.

I don't know your rig, but on most solid state rigs, there is an output power control.  With the rig in CW, set that control to the amount of power needed to drive the amp to whatever power you want - 1kW, etc.

Then, switch to SSB and now use the ALC meter to make sure you're not driving the mic gain too high.  

Do not count on on-frequency audio reports to know whether you're overdriving - you need to know how much interference you're generating on adjacent frequencies to get a good idea if you're overdriving.

Just understand that it is rare that someone UNDERdrives an amplifier - because of misleading meter readings, most people crank up the mic gain way too much.

If you MUST have some meter reading the peak power, you'll have to invest some $500 into a peak reading Bird 43P meter and the 2.5kW element.

So, try that - tune for CW, switch to SSB on the exciter, and use the exciter's ALC meter to keep the mic gain set right.  Don't try for a high power meter reading, because power meters won't be right on SSB.

AM

Car stereo mounts aren't quite as universal as you might hope.  Each American brand has their own unique style, the Japanese tend to have a specific size, and the Europeans use another.  So the ham rig manufacturers would have to show some allegiance to one area's cars or another.

In a similar situation as yours, what I did was to purchase a rig that was definitely smaller than the opening involved, then I fabricated an appropriate set of brackets to hold the rig in place, and also a "faceplate" - a bit of cardboard cut to fit the car's opening, with a hole in it to fit the radio's face.  Two minutes with a $3 can of spray paint, and my faceplate adapter matched the dashboard coloring.

This is a case where you have to use some enginuity and creativity!

AM

What you say has merit, but not unlimited.  Our family's "Main" machine is, in fact, a Mac.  But is has decidedly NOT been bug free.  The very same sorts of conflicts that happen on PCs can happen on Macs.  Macs, in fact, are more prone to bugs caused when upgrading OS and the existing drivers don't work.  We paid mucho dollars for this G3 machine when it was new, not so long ago.  It was about the last machine on which OS 8.6 came standard.  Knowing how much agony it was going to be to upgrade to OS 9, we waited until OS 9 was about a year old.  We took the plunge, only to have the machine slow way down, and begin to have crashes.  We found out that our video card did not have OS 9 compatible drivers, and wonder of wonders, never would.  So we had to pay another $150 to get a newer video card that had OS 9 drivers available.  That fixed most of the speed problem, but we still were getting occasional crashes.  Turns out the hard disk drivers that came with the machine were incompatible with OS 9, and in fact, OS 9 had dropped support for our hard disk.  So, off we trundle to the store, to buy a third party bit to work as a hard disk driver.  So the slowdowns were nearly elimintated and the crashes nearly, but we still get both.  There's a reason for a product called "Conflict Catcher" and it's not because Macs are bug-free.  

All told, though I really do prefer the Mac.  We use it with a 20" display that was discarded from work because it "failed".  We replaced the video connector and it's working fine for us.

But that's the family computer.  What about my ham computer?  I can't use the family computer for hamming, since the family likes to use it even when I'm hamming.  Well, I prefer to spend my money on radios, not computers, so I need a CHEAP computer for hamming.  Face it, Macs ain't EVER gonna be as cheap as PCs.  For $70, I got a Pentium II/200 MHz with 8G drive and 120M RAM and an 8Meg video card.  I loaded Windoze 98 on it, disabled all the auto-update, "Bill Gates call home" garbage, and it's serving very well as a ham PC.  I'm really sad to say this part - it crashes less than the Mac, and even though it has less RAM and a slower processor, everything seems to go faster on it.  

And, as you said, most of the ham sw is written for DOS or Windoze.  For any application I run for hamming, there's a free way to do it in DOS/Windoze, but often on the Mac it's for money.  As I said, I want my ham money to be used for radios and antennas, not the dumb computer....

AM