Ham Radio – A contact sport

Ten-Tec has announced that have discontinued the TITAN III amplifier. A simple statement posted on the Ten-Tec website seemed to suggest that the issue had to do with tube availability. The Titan III amplifier was designed with 4CX800A/GU74B tubes.

I agree with some of the comments posted along with the announcement. It would be nice to see a solid-state amp in the class of the SPE Expert from Ten-Tec.

Now that Ten-Tec may be rethinking their amplifier position in the market, I can let them know what I want in an HF amp.

What we need in an HF ham radio amplifier

As a casual contester/DXer, my needs might difer from yours, but here they are:

• Idiot proof. I am certain that I will make mistakes with any piece of ham radio equipment. These might come at setup, when making changes, or in the heat of battle at 3am during a big contest. Graceful fault recovery, refusal to do something bad and other warnings = good. Crash/smoke=bad.
• SO2R. The SPE Expert 1K-FA has me intrigued.  Can you really run SO2R with this amp? I mean really. Could I be operating 40m S&P and 20m run with various autotuner settings and really switch bands almost instantly? Really? Can anyone confirm this? I’ve looked but can’t find anything that documents it. I’d love to see a Youtube video demo if this is true.
• Solid-state.
• 1KW+
• PC Interface
• Integration with mainstream PCs (Icom, Ten-tec, Kenwood, Elecraft, …)
• Great price

Can you deliver Ten-Tec?