|
New to Ham Radio?
My Profile
Community
Articles
Forums
News
Reviews
Friends Remembered
Speak Out
Strays
Survey Question
Operating
Contesting
DX Cluster Spots
Propagation
Resources
Calendar
Classifieds
Ham Exams
Ham Links
List Archives
News Articles
Product Reviews
QSL Managers
Site Info
eHam Help (FAQ)
Support the site
The eHam Team
Advertising Info
Vision Statement
About eHam.net
|
|
Show all reviews of the Ameritron ALS-1300
|
|
You can write your own review
of the Ameritron ALS-1300.
|
|
N5OU
|
Rating: 4/5
|
Nov 6, 2009 11:36
|
Send this review to a friend!
|
|
Great, But!
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
I have owned SN#30 for about a week now and have used it on 160, 80, 40 and 20 in both SSB and CW. When I first pulled it out of the box (purchased new from RandL) I was impressed by both the packing and the craftsmanship. I own and use several ameritron amps, AL-1500, AL-82, AL-500m and ALS600 so I knew what to expect. I did not remove the cover, rather simply followed the installation instructions. I use a FT-2000 and an ICOM 756PROIII, next inline is the amplifier, followed by a powermaster SWR meter into a Palstar Auto-Tuner, then out to a full wave horizontal loop fed with 450 ladder line. My swr seen by both my radio and Powermaster is 1:1. Since the powermaster is after the amplifier, it should accurately indicate
forward and reflected power. I keyed up a CW tone on 3.825 with 20 watts input to the amplifier and it kicked off giving me a high swr fault. Reset standby switch and watched both the radio and powermaster meters for an indication of high swr and saw 1:1. Amp kicked off again, I reset and tried again this time watching reflected power on the ampifier itself and saw a large and inconsistent deflection. Amplifier indicated almost 200watts of reflected power? I then inserted my alpha SWR meter in the same location as the powermaster and measured exactly what the powermast had previously. Ok, so the amplifier is seeing something that no other peice of equipment is. HMM, open up a ticket with Ameritron detailing my experiances and test and within a couple of days got a completley irrelevent response of "When the amplfier detects 200 watts of relfected power it goes to standby". Right! that is what I wanted and that is what I paid $2499 for. However, the reflected power the amplifier is seeing simply does not exist! I then put my radio-craft SWR meter (this is 3 labratory grade swr meters) in place of the Alpha and again measured a perfect 1:1 using my AL-1500 at 1500 watts out into a dummy load. I then switched back to the ALS-1300 transmitting into a palstar 1:1 dummy load and it kicked off with and about 190 watts of reflected power and an swr of 1:6 on the ALS-1300 swr meter.
This only occurs when the first Dit or Dash is sent from my paddle. SSB voice is fine.
Now on to SSB voice. 75 watts input from my FT-2000 provides 1096 watts ouput. I have not driven it past 75 in and have no plans to do so. Amplifier remains cool and quiet and does not look bad at all on my desktop. I will use my other amps for CW and allocate the 1300 to voice duties only. I remember my early days with a ALS-500 and 600 having the same issue and the fix was to bend the output contactor on the relay slightly so it closes just prior to the input relay. I fixed those so I suspect with some time I can fix this. Obviously I am ok with Ameritron equipment as I currently own about $10,000.00 worth of their amplifiers, but I cant in good faith give it a 5 and honestly, given the reply to my help ticket I am being generous with the 4. When you pay almost $2500 dollars for a piece of equipment, your expectations are that it will do at least what the boxtop advertises.
|
|
Email Subscription
You are not subscribed to this review.
Subscribe!
My Subscriptions
Subscriptions Help
|
If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions about Reviews
please email your Reviews Manager
|
|
|
