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Reviews For: ACOM 1010

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

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Review Summary For : ACOM 1010
Reviews: 84MSRP: 2340 USD
Description:
KW 160 - 10 m PA, 700 W PEP

Jan 2007 Note - Vine Antennas, UK agents for ACOM, have advised that their ACOM 1010 amplifiers now have a fan- noise reduction modification that reduces fan noise considerably whilst maintaing sufficient cooling of the amplifier tube

Product is in production
More Info: http://www.acom-bg.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
35844.9
VY0PW Rating: 2021-10-28
Great value Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Have the 1010 amp for 6 months now and very happy with it. It is a backup for an ICOM PW1.

Workmanship and built plus materials used in the 1010 are first class. Very easy to tune. Fan is super quite better than on the PW1. It has two SO 259 antenna connectors at the back and a front panel switch activates them when the amp is on otherwise only the antenna connected to PL socket 1 in the back is active.

Only thing I would like see added in an upgrade maybe have 3 or 4 259s at the back and have a separate power line to the front antenna switch so one does not have to power up the whole the amp on with the tube running.

All in all great value for the shack. I am sure it will last a long time.


W0AZ Rating: 2021-08-24
Well made, conservatively rated. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Updated impressions after more than a year of use, driving it with an Icom IC-7300.

Setup was simple. It requires only an appropriate plug on the power cord (mine arrived set up to run on 240V and that’s what I have available in my shack), a keying line and coax to the rig and antenna. Band switching is manual.

I added 15ms of transmit delay to the IC-7300.

It’s a very stoutly built, conservatively rated amplifier. I run it at ~500W CW with ~50W of drive and at ~600W on peaks on sideband.

Tuning is very simple. This is the fastest and easiest tuning tube amp I’ve ever used. Fail safe mechanisms to protect the amp from operator error are there in abundance.

LEDs provide any operating information you might want but remain simple for everyday operation showing only forward power, reflected power and the nature of any faults that might occur. Additional button pushes provide other operating parameters.

The fan is louder than I’d like. Not a big deal, and the only negative I can report. Once the receiver is on and I’m listening to signals the fan noise becomes unnoticeable.

This is not my first tube amp (my Yaesu FL-2100B is still working fine with it’s original 1970s vintage Cetron 572Bs - now driven with my FT-1000MP), but this Acom may well be the last amp I ever need. I expect it will outlast me.

I am no longer operating any digital modes, so I can’t report on it’s ability to handle high duty cycle operation; however, the ability to select limited maximum output for those modes at the touch of a button and the very conservative rating of the amp should allow it to handle these modes with ease.

I’ve used it roughly 75%/25% for CW and sideband, pretty much daily for several hours since getting it (largely thanks to local covid restrictions) with no issues of any kind.

Everything has worked exactly as it should since day one, and it appears to be very well engineered and constructed.

Not that it matters a great deal to me, but the amp is fairly compact and quite nicely styled.

The additional cost over bargain priced amps is well worth it.
W5ZYX Rating: 2021-06-25
Very impressed with first experience with the A-1010 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Yesterday I received an A-1010 from HRO, put it in service, and my first impressions of this amplifier are very positive. In my six decade ham radio career I've had five other linear amplifiers ranging from a sweep tube rig that could put out 300-400 watts on a good day to an SB-220 that effortlessly delivered 1.5 KW PEP. (The SB-220 would still be here had UPS not dropped and literally crushed it when it was sent out for addition of the Harbach mods, but that's another story.) What sets the A-1010 apart from all of these other amps with vacuum tube finals is its almost instant and effortless ability to be tuned to resonance.

The A-1010 is sleek and low, not nearly as heavy as its forefathers, and to my ear produces barely noticeable fan noise. So far I've tested it on 75, 40 and 20 SSB and with 60 watts drive it consistently delivers 750-800 watts PEP into my 160 meter loop measured at a Palstar AT2KD tuner.

While certainly not an inexpensive piece of equipment, I don't believe the considerable additional cost difference between it and a full legal limit amplifier is justified by the slight additional gain in readability that results. The A-1010 will make your signal heard and reflects engineering and manufacturing quality. Experience proves that you usually get what you pay for and an A-1010 should serve its owner well for a long time.

I realize that one day of testing isn't long enough to draw absolute conclusions about a piece of equipment but my first impression is that ACOM's A-1010 is in a class by itself.

I will update this review after a month or so of testing on all bands with all modes.
K0DXV Rating: 2021-06-02
Beautifully Made, Easy to operate, Flawless performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I feel fortunate that I was able to snag one. Like many ham products, amplifiers have been in short supply. I have read everything I could find on the 1010 and felt it would suit my needs very well. I had originally considered the 1000 but the price for an extra 300 watts was nearly 50% higher. So I chose the 1010.

Many people have remarked about how easy it is to tune. My experience bares this out. The load indicator is pure brilliance. I transmit 15 watts into the 1010, peak the tune and then adjust the load so that only the center LED is lit and tuning is done. This literally takes seconds. I then adjust my output power to 65 watts and the 1010 puts out its full 700 watts with occasional peaks on side band reaching 800 watts.

I do find the fan noise to be rather harsh. It's not particularly loud - but it has a kind mechanical whine that I find irritating. But, once I turn the volume of my transceiver up, the noise is hidden in the background. Compared to the other amplifiers I've own, it's not bad. and I can live with it.

The 1010 only has a single RCA jack for transmit switching. There is no facility for ALC. This is fine with me since I never rely on ALC to limit input power anyway. It's a better practice to monitor your input and output power rather than rely on the amplifier to prevent over driving.

My 1010 has been in steady use now for just a few days. I've made dozen of contacts including many DX stations on both 20 and 17 meters. From the standpoint of usability ( professionally I was a usability engineer) I give Acom high marks for making a product that is basically idiot-proof. Misadjusting the load control can result in distortion and splatter and put unnecessary stress on the tube(s). Acom eliminates the possibility of mistuning the load with a simple 3 LED indicator. Adjust the load so only the center LED is lit and your done. Fantastic!

Overall, the 1010 meets my expectations in every way. It's very attractive with a nice compact cabinet that looks great on my operating desk. It's far from the lest expensive amplifier in its class. But, as the adage goes, you get what you pay for. You pay a little more for the 1010 and you get a real quality product.
GJ0KYZ Rating: 2021-01-30
Excellent amplifier Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've owned an Acom 1010 for a few months now and it's performed flawlessly. It can't operate on 6m, it doesn't have comprehensive metering - no SWR reading for example, it doesn't have vacuum relays and it only puts out 800w. However, it is very, very simple to tune, it will work with any rig, it can run full power all day long and it is TOTALLY idiot proof. The other I was operating FT8 with the wrong antenna for the band and with a resulting SWR that was off the scale. After ten minutes I noticed my mistake and whilst the amp had become hot it suffered no damage whatsoever. An absolute 10/10, 5-star piece of kit; much better the two Acom 1000s that I have owned - one of which packed up completely whilst the other developed an annoying glitch with the display. Both were more twitchy to tune than the Acom 1010, which with practice, you can tune in a round five seconds. I bought this amp as a stop-gap whilst my SPE 2K-FA is being built. The latter hasn't turned up yet. I do hope it's worth the wait and the money as the Acom 1010 has set the bar very high indeed.
G0LFQ Rating: 2021-01-18
Easy to tune and operate Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
OK its not as easy as an automatic solid state amp but it doesn't take much to get it right quickly. It takes a couple of minutes to warm up, so power on first. It can tune VSWR of less than 3:1 which negates the need for a tuner. Anything outside of this, you may need to think about a different antenna?

I have the newer version, the fan is not silent but its quiet enough. I have only driven it up to 400w which it does effortlessly.

I drive it with a Yaesu FTdx1200 which uses a 10 din mini plug. This is very difficult to find in the UK (not ACOMs fault) I had to “butcher” a Sega Saturn RGB scart to 10 pin din to make a ground key cable.

In a nutshell its just a great Amp, simple and effective.
AK4SZ Rating: 2020-07-08
Excellent Amplifier Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I found the amplifier easy to set up and use. Very easy to tune. The only minor fault is a short warm up time when powered on. It has been very forgiving of my learning curve using an amplifier. I'm extremely satisfied with this product.
YO3HJV Rating: 2020-06-03
Excellent built, excellent performances! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
First of all, I do have other tube amp. It's a Tokyo HyPower 1K so my impressions are somehow biased by that amplifier...
This one was returned to me by a customer who didn't liked the LED's (he expected to be rounded like on Acom 1000).
What I do like most of this model is the honesty of the manufacturer. It is "just" a 700 W PeP QRO, which is in the specs of the tube (GU74). This means that the tube is treated right and it's life will be longer than in ACOM1000 where the tube is tortured.
I am using it almost every time I get in the air on HF, mostly in the 250-400 W in CW and rarely on 600-700 in SSB. I use ICOM 7100 and sometime a IC-7300. None of them has "ALC mod" and I never received a complain about my signal. I often monitor my signal on various foreign WebSDR's and the signal is clear and nice.
The controls are very neat and a little piece of paper with the specific position for the two knobs for the bands I am working often is great help. In fact, I can change the 40 and 20m without making any adjustments, my antenna is perfectly tuned on this bands so I only change the bands on the amplifier.
On the higher bands, a 4:1 gear might be usefull but I understand that was a compromise for a low price.
About two times I tripped the protections when I forget to change the band on the amplifier; no problem at all...
It is built like a tank but also have a very appealing aspect on the desk; it's simply elegant! Even my wife like it!
I know very few read the User's manual but this one contains usefull information about how to adapt the settings for various situations (more gain/more liniarity) and the TRI indicator is awesome.
I decided to keep it because I do have a few spare GU74 from a frozen HM QRO and also because the tube is "treated" right in this amplifier. I know I am repeating this but it's important! Treat right a GU74b and you will have a lifetime "friend"!
Other good things:
-It was designed to be used in Field days;
-Excellent support from the manufacturer;
-Very reliable - made with good quality components = less faults in real life;
-It whitstand 3:1 SWR (like most of other tube QRO);
Bad things:
-It is starting in "OPER" mode and for 2-3 minutes while is warming up, you cannot use the radio. Well, you can add a swtich on the TX cable but I cannot undersand why it is so hard to put a line in the code to OPER only after it is ready warm?
-The LOAD/TUNE knobs are on the variable capacitor's shaft. No gear. Somehow they managed to find an acceptable tuning ratio without a gear. Not so bad...
I can live with these and give it full 5 stars!
2E0FTG Rating: 2020-02-14
The Best Amplifier Out There Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I brought the Acom 1010 on the 10/02/2020 for when I've got my full license. This unit was used but only had 1 previous owner me being the second. I didn't know this until I picked it up from the shop (ML&S) so this was a surprise and made my day since I only paid £1099 for it (New £1599) and you couldn't tell the difference between a brand new one and this one as it had hardly been used by the previous owner so the tetrode/tube is still perfect and won't need changing if at all for many years to come.

Anyway, I set up the amp once I arrived home with it to test it out into a dummy load and all I can say is "WOW" this amp is awesome and better than any amp I've ever seen or used in the past, the build quality is top-notch and every single part just screams quality inside and out.
The amp runs very quietly and stays cool even running at the full 800watts which is very easily managed driving it with the max drive of 60watts from my Icom 756 Pro 3. This amp is very very quick and easy to tune and takes less than 10 seconds and you're done ready to transmit. Another good feature is the fact that it's completely idiot-proof with protection from operator error so no need to worry about it getting damaged as it will trip and give you time to correct the problem. If you're in the market to buy a new amp I wouldn't even hesitate to recommend the Acom 1010. I would even buy another one if I had the cash without even thinking about it, it's that good. This one's definitely 100% a keeper.
73s Mike
K1TA Rating: 2020-01-27
Best Amp out there for the money ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this unit from DXE after reading reviews and watching several YouTube videos on the unit. I bought the 240 VAC model which came quickly. Setup was very simple and I was up and on the air in 10 minutes. The unit runs very cool and quietly. In addition the front panel is like a work of art, in my opinion. The quality and workmanship is superior and makes it worth every penny.
73 de K1TA