Lazy Senior wrote:
Michael Black wrote:

Nobody used a linear amplifier for AM in amateur radio circles.
They either used medium power to start with, or went with a full kilowatt
amplifier with suitable modulator. They made sure they had the space,
and made sure the floor was strong enough.

You must not work AM. I talk daily on AM (with my Valiant)and find hams
running linear amps at legal limit. They ALL sound good. Most are
driving the amp with old xmtrs....

Folks are doing that today, but in previous years it was much more common
to run the transmitter with no modulation, and run it into a (very nonlinear)
amplifier running the legal limit. Then you'd modulate the finals of the
outboard amplifier.

The good part about this is that your amplifier is now much smaller and
has lower input power than a linear amplifier that is truly linear. The
bad news is that now you need a modulation deck putting out half as
much AF power as your RF output, and a gargantuan transformer.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."