Getting Louder at School With Amplifiers and Antennas

One of my recent projects for K2GXT has been to fix a broken Yaesu FL-7000 HF amplifier which K2GXT owns. It spent the summer at my house in Massachusetts where I actually have the time to fix it as opposed to at school where there is little free time. Bill Grassa N4ATS provided helpful information and parts for the amplifier. The power supply transistors had been blown causing the voltage to be too high. This caused the Yaesu FL-7000 to trip its protection circuits whenever the push-to-talk button was keyed; hence, we had an amplifier which was unusable.

Yeasu FL-7000 amplfier power supply

Prior to this the RIT amateur radio club ran barefoot which means using only the transceiver with no amplifier. This typically is about 100 watts with most of today's radios. Building an amateur radio station capable of transmitting a strong signal with only 100 watts is an important consideration. A station that is loud with such capabilities means it has an efficient antenna system and location, for the most part. When an amplifier is introduced to the mix, The loud signal heard on the air is that much  more effective when the amplifier is used.

This boils down to antennas. There's no sense in using an amplifier with an amateur radio station that radiates power inefficiently. The RIT amateur radio club has such a station on the air. An off center fed dipole (OCFD) was built and installed a year and a half ago. The antenna is also referred to as an off center fed doublet. More information can be found on the L.B. Cebik (SK) Website. The antenna radiates efficiently, often preferred over the high frequency (HF) beam we also own. The Yaesu FL-7000 is going to really pump up the signal of the club with the antenna system installed. If you operated a school club with an ineffective antenna try to fix it before adding an amplifier to the system.