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Reviews For: ACOM 2000a

Category: Amplifiers: RF Power - HF & HF+6M

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Review Summary For : ACOM 2000a
Reviews: 105MSRP: 6850 USD
Description:
ON4UN demonstrates the ACOM 2000A Automatic HF Linear Amplifier
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.acom-bg.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
251054.9
K6KAR Rating: 2006-02-22
The Best Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
In the past, I built all my own gear and have built several amplifiers. The last amp was a pair of 4-1000A’s which did a great job. The only problem was that it was rack mounted and rather clunky. After looking at various circuit approaches and also looking at construction materials and considering the time it would take me to get to the finished product, I decided to purchase a commercially built amplifier.
Before I committed to the ACOM purchase, I conducted considerable research on not only other commercially available amps but also looked at building my own. I just received my ACOM 2000A three weeks ago. This is without a doubt; the best designed and constructed amplifier I’ve ever seen. Over the years (48 as a ham) I’ve owned a lot of home built as well as commercial products. The ACOM 2000A ranks as the best of the best. Thanks to the ACOM people for a great product. Also, thanks to ACOM representative Will,K6ND for has able assistance.
PA0Q Rating: 2005-08-04
Just P-E-R-F-E-C-T! Time Owned: more than 12 months.

I use the Acom 2000A for more than a year now and still am extremely satisfied! In very different conditions and during the special event station PC100H for 48 hours continious.

I had the Alpha 87A for a couple of weeks, next to the Acom 2000A. Here is my comparison.

- My experience was that the Alpha 87A is much more sensitive than the Acom 2000A. The Acom 2000A is extremely solid and reliable!

- The 2000A makes less ventilator noise than the 87A.

- Here it comes; the biggest difference between Acom and Alpha! The (technical) service of Acom is OUTSTANDING! After a few hours I get a very thoroughly answer from high knowledged engineers! When I send questions to Alpha I have to wait for at least one week and still get a very moderate answer. I sent three messages and got one answer which did'nt gave me a solution for my problem. After two more messages and one week waiting still no reply! Glenn is okay, but when Glenn is not available there is nobody who can help me with technical advise. This is a real horror when you buy a linear amplifier of $7.000!

- The 2000A has an excellent Remote Control. Unbelievable; what an information on the display!

- The 2000A has two transformers; seperate for the filament and the high Voltage.

- The 2000A uses vacuum relays who IMHO are less sensitive than the PIN-diodes of the Alpha 87A. PIN-diodes can cause harmonics and are not easy to replace.

- The two Svetlana 4CX800A/GU74b tubes are very solid and very cheap; $100 for a pair instead of the very expensive Eimac 3CX800A of $950 for a pair. GU74b you will find everywhere, on flea markets and on the interet they are very easy to get.

I tried the Alpha 87A, but prefer the Acom 2000A in many ways.

ON4JZ Rating: 2005-06-06
Simply "THE BEST" Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Have my Acom 2000a for 1 year now and never had any problem.
When powered on you're on the air after 150 seconds with full legal power.
You don't hear it, it just works!!!
The amplifier responds very quickly to frequency changes. Segment changes within a band take just 0.2 second, band changes 1 second, and a full retune, 3 seconds maximum

Not cheap but a great product.
LA7DFA Rating: 2005-04-25
Not perfect, but close Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been using the Acom 2000A for 4 years and are satisfied with the swift service from Acom.

The following 'problems' has occured:
Arc protection activated often on a conical antenna (caused by frequent spray of salt water at Jan Mayen).
Perhaps a bit too much protection for a coastal location?

A fuse blew during portable operation on Jan Mayen, it was caused by overvoltage from the generator. It would be much better if the fuses were located on the rear and preferably were automatic fuses.

The last problem was a broken QSK relay.
I replaced it myself and connected TXinhibit to the radio to prevent it from happening again.

Except from these minor problems the amplifier has loafed away during ~50.000 QSO's.
9K2HN Rating: 2005-04-25
Great Amp Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought this amp more than 2 years ago, and till now no problem at all, I used it in all the contests i joined for the past two year and never had a single problem. and the antenna Tuner also worked great for me.
PA1K Rating: 2005-01-13
fantastic Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I use the Acom 2000A now for some time.
Had some problem with my antenna and the Acom went in protection.
Wrote email to Acom and the support was great.
I am realy impressed by the amp and the company.
I think one of the best products on the market.
Like to buy a seccond one.
I agree with PA1HR very silent and lots of power.
But the most important great technical support from the company.
Advice anyone to buy one.
W7GO Rating: 2004-12-16
Excellent amplifier Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my Acom 2000a for three years now and find it to be very reliable. Far from being "junk". It tunes smoothly and am totally satisfied with the amp.
I have always had good communication, timely, with any questions answered from the Acom representative.
GM0FQV Rating: 2004-08-30
Update Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Hi all, I have been running my Acom 2000A for three and a half years now and it it still doing the business for me. Ran one of the big Ameritron linears for some time prior to the 2000A, but it presented me with more problems than I could handle, and the support from the manufacturers was nil.
The 2000A just keeps on going.
If Acom had not produced this linear amplifier, I might just have had to slash my wrists in despair - thank you Acom,
GM6TVR / GM0FQV / 9G1BJ
PA9DX Rating: 2004-06-01
Still going strong Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own my Acom 2000A for 2 years. Bought it second hand from PA1KW (now PA1K). Never had a problem with it. Owned a Alpha 87A before but still prefer the Acom.

KC4VFP Rating: 2004-02-06
Quietest and Cleanest Amp Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I held off writing this, waiting for something to happen.

I am in the Broadcast Engineering/Consulting business, and CEO of the company. I have the chance to play with many amps, and every once in a while, something comes along that is far ahead in its class.

The Acom 2000A is one of those pieces that is hard to categorize when it comes to reviewing. It is in a class by itself. The first thing you notice (I also own a Henry 5K Classic) is the LACK of blower noise. I had to turn the air conditioning off to take an audio SPL level on the Acom unit. Normal voice conversation has an SLP of approximately 60 db. This amp checked in at 47.1 db SPL at a distance of one meter, making it the quietest one I've measured so far.

The lack of TVI was immediately apparent on our cable-connected HDTV. The Alpha had caused the horizontal sweep to come to a dead stop on voice peaks, but the Acom produced only a minute horizontal phase jitter in the picture at full legal power. I was curious, and pulled out our Tektronix 2782 Spectrum Analyzer. The Acom's second harmonic was -58.2 dbc into a dummy load through a directional coupler, with an operating frequency of 14.220 MHz. Quite impressive. This has good potential for multi-band contesting, without desensing receivers on other bands. Other order harmonics also were also greatly attenuated,

Performance wise, it took very little drive (less than 25 watt voice peaks from an Icom 756 Pro II to produced 1.6 kw PEP out, and ~40 watts produced a 2.4kw reading (into a dummy load, of course).

I purchased this amp because of the fully automatic Smart Algorithm tuning unit, with a 10 antenna capability per band segment, plus I could buy 2 matched pairs of tubes for $200 - one spare pair for each amp. The tubes have held up fine, and being a person who spends his days solving RF problems for others, I have not had to touch this amp.

One thing I will say is that this amp handles high VSWR where the Icom PW-1 and the Alpha Amps shut down. It is very tolerant of power line glitches, where the Alpha sometimes kicked out when the main AC unit came on line.

There’s really not much to say about this amp. It's one of those things you just take for granted. You turn it on, hear someone on your radio, key the mike, and it tunes within a fraction of a second. It is completely transparent to the operator. The only cable to connect to your rig is the RCA phono keying jack.
That is a big plus if you have different transceivers. You don't need a special cable or adaptor for each radio, only a keying line. The Amp senses the frequency segment and displays it.

All said, I did buy 2, expecting some problems, but there were none. I did read the reviews posted about some of the early units having a bad filament plug on the PC board, but mine were later ones, and the plugs and board look cool using thermography.

I rate this very high for anyone wanting to do complex digital work, where IMD, group delay, differential phase, and differetial gain become a factor.

From an engineering standpoint, this is a linear Linear!