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Reviews For: Alpha 9500

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

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Review Summary For : Alpha 9500
Reviews: 122MSRP: 7950. USD
Description:
Fully-automatic 160-10M amplifier, successor to the 87A. Uses a single 8877 tube in grounded-grid configuration. Integrated antenna switching, full QSK with vacuum relay.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.alpharfsystems.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001224.8
K6AER Rating: 2008-04-30
The Mercedes Benz of HF amplifiers Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This weekend we had the Visalia DX Convention in Visalia, California and the special event station K6V was QRO for 40 hours. For the special event station we used an Alpha 9500 which had just come back from Clippperton Island. It still had salt residue on the cabinet. The amplifier was hooked up to the SteppIR DB36 beam at 86 feet and the exciter was the new K3. Needless to say the station performed very well. The 3.5 KVA transformer was slid into the cabinet left side and after three Molex type connector’s were attached the cover was put back on and we were ready to go. This was one of those Top Gun kick the tires and light my fire moments. I had read that some folks thought the amplifier was over engineered and I wanted to find out.

This was my first experience with the new Alpha 9500 automatic amplifier and I was very impressed. We had a hundred hams using the amplifier and I might add most have very little experience with high power amplifiers and the amplifier survived the abuse very well. The auto AC sense worked flawlessly and set the amplifier transformers input to the hotels 208 voltage. No taps to move just plug and play.

It was not uncommon for the newbie’s to overdrive the amplifier or switch bands on the rig with out switching antenna settings. The result each time was a minor fault with just recycling the OPERATION switch needed to reset the amplifier. I noticed at 1500 watts out only the first Grid LED was lit. The 8877 was loafing along drawing almost no grid current. The Tune and Load can be adjusted in the manual setting for reducing grid drive a few mA on the lean site with the load control.

All the antenna output connectors (there are 4), load, tune and band setting are memorized. When you change bands the proper settings and antenna ports are memorized for future use. Slick. While I am talking about output connectors they are the removable type that is found on Bird watt meters. You can change them easily to ‘N” connectors if you want to.

In the bad boy area of the watt (red LED’s) meter, I saw the amplifier putting out 2700 watts when accidently overdriven. (Bad Boy, Bad Boy what ya going to do when the FCC comes looking for you.) At this point, when I came into the Comm. trailer, I pointed out the error of their ways and had them back the drive back down to 40 watts.

We also had the 4510 wattmeter attached to the input and on each band the input VSWR was below 1.3:1. The amplifier was extremely quiet and you had to look at the lights to make sure it was in operation. The power output meters not only shows peak power but the last LED stays in place to show you the peak reading while the rest of the LED’s move with average power displayed.

On item you notice right away is how efficient this amplifier is. Very little heat was being produced at 1500 watts PEP output while we yanked it up on SSB. Nice to be able keep the shack cool.

Although I did not operate any CW the keying was very quiet and the CW types at the convention like the operation of the amp in QSK.

Also the complete set of operation parameters was being displayed on a lap top to give a diagnostic overview of the amplifiers operation and health. This includes error codes which help in amplifier diagnostics.

The construction was superb and the wiring was in my opinion Mill spec. in every aspect. Looking into the amplifier you can see why the Alpha cost more but a Mercedes Benz cost more than a Ford or a Chevy. It is almost a shame to put a cover on this amp. The manual is very well written and any questions on operation were easy to find.

I know it is expensive but having an American company paying decent wages to turn out a beautiful product like the 9500 is worth it. Alpha supports their amplifier going all the way back the Alpha 77 series. I cannot name another company that supports an amateur radio product 30 years later.
W6UNQ Rating: 2007-10-01
Another 9500 On The Air Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After waiting 20 months Alpha 9500 Serial #25 showed up this morning. The transformer was a little bit of a problem putting in. Took about fifteen minutes.

Turning the Amplifier on error 5 was displayed. No High Voltage or Fan/Blower either. And Email was sent. Within 2 minutes a response came back. Asking me to Up Plug the Amplifier for 15 seconds. As this resets the Amplifier. That did not work. Another Email which in turn was followed up by a phone call from Molly. She ask me to look at the molex connector at the rear of the chassic. Found that one of the pins had became unseated. Push the pin back in the connector. Put the cover on with 2 screws. Turn the amplifier on. And in started look like we were home free. However applying 40 watts drive cause a Error 1 Trip. Found that by putting all the screw in the case resolved the problem. The 9500 Fan/Blower are not quite. My 87A is very quite compared to the 9500. The other thing that I noticed about the 9500 is 60 Watts of drive on 40 meters, you get 1500 watts. On 20 meters that same 60 watts gives you 1800 watts, 80 meters 2250 watts and 10 meter 1000 Watts (Into a Alpha 2100 Dummy Load). My 87A is +- 100 Watts of 1500 on all bands with 50 watts of drive. I like the 9500 But I am not ready to give up the 87A yet.

Robin (K6UNQ) robinfhill@roadrunner.com