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[K4BDA]

What is a "Pill" in an Amplifier or Final?
I was communicating with a guy the other day who said he had a rig for-sale with 2-pills.

I think he may have been talking about the power FET's in the final amplifier...
or some substitute circuit.

Maybe some kind soul would educate me.

(Long time ham but I guess I've been out of it for awhile as the term in new to me.)

Thanks

PS - In the case of the guy I was talking to, I deduced that he may have been, at lease originally, a CB operator so maybe the term got started there.

[W3PX]

CB'ers call the transistors with the round white packages "pills" because they look like, well, pills.

https://www.icompplus.com/en/transistors/16006/2sc2290-transistor-rf-1015467

[K1KIM]

CB lingo for all those guys building 11 meter amps for CBers to operate outside th legal limits of the band.
I have never heard a ham operator or station builder refer to a legal linear amplifier as having so many "pills".

Maybe I just don't get out enough. HiHi

[SWMAN]

 A CBer that lives about 2 miles from me is always bragging that he has 16 pills in his linear in his SUV. One day I ran into him at the Post Office, he showed me and sure enough he had 16 pills. He had 4 large batteries and 2 large alternators also. I was amazed.

[N8NK]

A CBer ..... and sure enough he had 16 pills. He had 4 large batteries and 2 large alternators also. I was amazed.

CBers are true HF radio enthusiasts. I'm a ham of 48 years, and have drifted in and out of CB radio several times over the decades. Who wouldn't? It's an absolute grin.

When the 'band is closed' on 10 meters, or when the hams just don't want to operate there, there's activity galore, spanning the coasts in the U.S., from morning to night on some days on channel 38 USB. I even worked Ireland the other day on channel 38, early in the morning. I feel no shame in admitting that. And I doubt I heard five sigs on the amateur 10m band the whole day.

CB channel 38, and 'free band frequencies' 27.425 LSB and 27.555 USB are extremely active most days recently with coast-to-coast and DX activity. I enjoy listening to it. No shame in admitting that either. lol
Be well all-
Chuck, N8NK

[N9DRY]

I fondly remember one of the CBers at work having an interesting linear in his trunk.  6 count em 6, 3-500Zs in parallel.  He had a huge alternator that provided 240vac to the amps power supply.  Put that in a modern car and you would kill all of the electronics in the car the first time you hit the PTT button.  Wouldn't be too happy being that close to the antenna either, then or now.

On another note, those power FETS probably should be called tablets as that is the medication form factor they resemble.  'Pills' are spherical.  When many meds were compounded in the pharmacy there were pill rolling trays, trays to hold many capsule halves for filling and tablet presses.  Compounding is becoming a lost art found most frequently in pharmacies that deal in pet meds.  By about 1972 the UW School of Pharmacy had dropped compounding lab down to a 1 or 2 semester elective in the last year replacing 4 to 6 semesters of mandatory labs.  From foggy memories of a half century ago history of Pharmacy (mandatory) class in 1972.

[AC7CW]

A CBer that lives about 2 miles from me is always bragging that he has 16 pills in his linear in his SUV. One day I ran into him at the Post Office, he showed me and sure enough he had 16 pills. He had 4 large batteries and 2 large alternators also. I was amazed.

Local Hams told me of a CB'er running 10kw mobile!

[AI5BC]

CBers are true HF radio enthusiasts.

And many CBers know a lot more about radios than hams. The difference is in how they use the radios. CBer's are not a group of old baby boomers sitting in a rocking or wheelchair sucking on an O2 bottle talking about the weather or how sick and tired they are. Their conversations are interesting, humorous, and not politically correct. They say what they really are thinking.

[WA2CWA]

And, in the amateur radio world of the 70's through the 90's, amplifiers were characterized as "1 holers", "2 holers", "3 holers", etc.
So, there you go: holes and pills 

Pete, wa2cwa

[K4HB]

16 Pills? That's a mud duck station. Got some real amps here, one with 48 pills and 10K watts. Got some videos as well, don't miss the last one...  CB Amps

[W3PX]

16 Pills? That's a mud duck station. Got some real amps here, one with 48 pills and 10K watts. Got some videos as well, don't miss the last one...  CB Amps

That last video was funny, but looks staged. The receiver didn't even mute when he keyed up.

[K4HB]

That last video was funny, but looks staged. The receiver didn't even mute when he keyed up.

Sure it's real. It's so real I'll put up there with Hard Core Pawn, Lizard Lick Towing, and Rasslin'.

[KC6RWI]

I have tuned down to the am section of the CB band to see how those stations look on the water fall display, they are very wide and loud.
I hear them talking like they are talking skip, but I don't believe it because I can hear other station and there is too much qrm, I can't listen, its all just broadcasting and showman  stuff. I always imagine the signal coming  an aging 2 story house with a bent antenna on top.

[WA2CWA]

  Probably one of these mid-size babies:
16 elements on a117 foot boom all sitting on a US Tower 72 foot motorized up/down tower.




Pete, wa2cwa

[K6BRN]

So - "What is a ... 'Pill' "?

The Sherlock Dictionary definitions:

"pill";noun

1.  (common use) A medication in tablet form taken to relieve pain or moderate insanity (see "3" below)

2.  (vernacular) Something unpleasant that must be accepted or endured (see "3" below)

3.  (CB use)  A metric of social status based purely on the counting the number of power transistors in an illegal CB amplifier.  The amplifier and devices need not be particularly useful or even functional.  Extra points are often awarded for gold plating and extra alternators.  Laws of pecking order rather than physics generally apply. (see "Boom Car")