Expert 1.3 k Amp Review.
In the recent QST a product review of this amp was done by Mark Wilson of the ARRL, from my prospective I have a few comments not covered in his article.
Expert builds these amps on an order basis only, there is no stock pile of them sitting on shelves waiting for customers. Granted, this keeps the cost down and assembly is not rushed.
However, the problem is supply and demand, demand exceeds the supply, therefore you might wait three, or four months for the product to be delivered. As they say, “All Good things come to those who wait”, I had placed my order for this amp a year ago with another outlet in the United States. This turned in to a total debacle on the part of the Larkins White combination. Once that fiasco was settled and I received my money back we proceeded to reorder again from a new out let in the states.
Of course we had to start all over again and that produced another four month wait, finally last week that long awaited box arrived on my doorstep.
There were some surprises, the entire amp weighs 29 pounds, gone are the heavy power transformers, filament transformers, large filter chokes and of course vacuum tubes. Once I opened the box I was surprised inside the box was a nice cloth carrying bag and inside that was the 1.3. unit. It was a tight fit, but easily managed since it was not 75, or 90 pounds with a tube amp
I ordered mine with a 220AC plug, here is another plus, no jumpers, or cumbersome menu’s to search for and of course no reason to ever open the top cover. You do have an easy access filter that may need cleaning after some time. Since we have heavy dust in our area, we will see how often this needs to be removed and cleaned.
So, let’s get this amp in operation and see what it can to for you? I moved the unit to my desk and connected up my six meter beam. You might ask why I chose six as my first band to try this unit? Well, this is my second station combo, I have a Yaesu FT 2k for six and an FT5K for forty meters. My forty meter antenna is on the ground for repair, but it will be in the air shortly.
So, that is the reason for the six meter trial, my main station is a Tokyo High Power HL 2.5 solid state amp driven by a Kenwood Ts 990 and that combo is used for 20, 15.10 side band and CW. I have used it for about five years, but THP closed up and this left a gap in solid state amps. Otherwise, I might have purchased another HL 2.5 unit. As you can see I take my ham radio seriously and as many of you know I am an avid Dxer.
My six meter beam is six elements resting at 80 feet, it does the job for me when the band is open. I cleared a space for my new amp and turned on the Expert, screen lit and looked like all was well internally. I started reading the manual about how to program the unit up for at least two bands. Here is where I was fooled for a short time, while hooking up cables one from the output of my transceiver to the input of the amp and the antenna chosen, I turned off the amp.
I am used to exercising caution, so with that in mind I had the amp off, now keep this in mind with a with a single input, single output amp you connect the antenna and the connection is coupled to the transceiver. You hear band noise regardless if the amp is turned on, or off. In the case of the Expert no connection is made until you turn on the amp, it can be in standby, or operate, but it has to be on before the connection is complete. It is really not an issue, in my case I scan two, or three bands in one operation.
The power consumed by leaving the 1.3 on all the time is about the same power consumption as a ten watt light bulb burning all year. Really a small amount, gone of course are power sucking requirements of heating filaments, big power transformers, filter chokes, and power supplies.
In effect you can leave the amp on all the time and be connected to the antenna you chose for your transceiver.
Mark’s article said that he obtained 1100 watts output on six, since I am a cw man for the most part, I used a steady carrier to see what the output was on six. I hit 1500 watts no problem and on Sideband I peaked at 1.3 to 1.4K PEP. This was the reading obtained on the Expert amp wattmeter. The Expert has three choices of power, low is 500 watts, medium 1000 watts, high, 1500 watts. I used the high power and obtained the output mentioned, I was using around 40 watts of drive power and that is about the same as my THP.
With this amp, read the instructions, to program the amp for antennas and two transceivers you will need to select what rig, and your antenna. This is done in the set mode, if you plan on using this amp for all bands and want the feature of automatic band switching then you will need to select what type of transceiver you have, plus the purchase of CAT cable, or you can fabricate your own. I do not plan on using CAT at this time, I can accomplish what I need, or want by a one button push of the input button.
I have automatic band switching on my main rig, so really with two rigs on the second station I do not need to hook up the CAT at this time. I did not buy the antenna tuner with the Expert, my SWR on 40 is flat, on six my beam shows a 1.3 hardly worth the expense for the tuner.
If you wish to take your station into the 21st century and put the tube era behind you, this is the answer at this time. Consider the fact you will have a light weight amp capable of delivering the full legal limit. You will never have to replace a tube, or spend large amounts of money for replacements. Think about this also, in ten years all other manufacturers might have a solid state amp on the market, and as to how many of the solid state amps will still be going over time, well I feel this will happen.
Tube type amps, although appealing to many hams will phase out due to the high price of tubes versus a solid state entry. So why Expert, well so far only Ameritron has an entry in the field. The overall rating is fair to good, with a few hams swearing off Ameritron for good. Read the reviews on E ham about both amps. The Expert scores high, while the Ameritron has spent lots of time in the brown truck going back to MFJ for repairs.
On the cooling process of the Expert it has four fans, they are very quiet and hardly noticed, it is a pleasure to operate this unit. My former Amp had a noisy blower, sounded like it was trying to grind up coffee, plus it took three minutes warm up time. Being an avid deer three minutes can seem like thirty, in that time the dx station could decide to shut down and you missed your chance. The fans speed up when the temperature rises, cut out is 75C, I have yet to reach that point, even on CW, if it does get that hot the amp drops down to the next level and keeps going.
With FD 2016 going on this year in the last week of June, we had thought six might produce some activity. We were seeing some interesting spots by stations in the Western part of the country. However, six had the spot light effect and nothing much in this area, I did manage to work about six stations, the best contact was Texas. This afternoon Colorado with a 599 report, power does make the difference.
For a complete listing of Specs and other thoughts read the article in QST this month in Product Review. Personally, I feel I have a winner, I defy anyone to tell the difference on the air with a tube amp versus solid state. Amps do one thing and that is amplify RF, no one amp does it better, it comes down to technology and dependability. If you are thinking about buying an amp, or replacing your tube amp give Expert a hard look.
