arudlang
Member
I asked basically the same question over at wwdx, but thought maybe I'd try posting it here as well.
I feel like I've reached the point where its time for an amp. My 980SSB is receiving great through the Hy-Gain CLR-2 on my roof, I can hear lots of skip and I can hear several local contacts who all have at least a little boost in their signal. For them they mostly have to listen to me in the static level, just a few too many miles apart for some of us.
I was originally going to try to keep the cost down and go for something like the KL 203P, but if you give a mouse a cookie... I mean my antenna can handle upwards of 300 watts so I'd like to utilize about 75% of that capacity at times. I would also really like to be able to have more adjustment than just the on/off of the 203P. I don't need/want 250 watts for local contacts to hear me better, but might be nice once in a while on good DX days.
I thought the KL 503 HD would do nicely, for a few dollars over the non-HD model I can plug and play and continue to avoid opening up my stock radio (won't need to try to drop the dead key from its current 3-3.5 watts). But then, I read in some forum somewhere that a person considering the 503 should look at the 505v. It was alleged that the 505v is an all around "better" amp that would be more useful down the road when a person finally makes the leap to ham bands.
I did see that the 505v advertises 3-30MHz vs the 25-30MHz of the 503. I don't know what the ham bands are but it kinda makes sense that an amp that can do a wider range of frequencies could be worth spending a bit more. If its a "better" amp anyways all the better.
That would really be peaking my budget though, by the time you add the low pass filter for another $42 and add some shipping we're talking around $400 probably to go the 505v route. That's a hefty bill considering I hardly have half that much into the rest of the base station setup so far. I don't want to buy a 203P just to wish for more power later and end up with the 203P on the shelf, so maybe this is a "do it right, do it once" kinda purchase(?)
I feel like I've reached the point where its time for an amp. My 980SSB is receiving great through the Hy-Gain CLR-2 on my roof, I can hear lots of skip and I can hear several local contacts who all have at least a little boost in their signal. For them they mostly have to listen to me in the static level, just a few too many miles apart for some of us.
I was originally going to try to keep the cost down and go for something like the KL 203P, but if you give a mouse a cookie... I mean my antenna can handle upwards of 300 watts so I'd like to utilize about 75% of that capacity at times. I would also really like to be able to have more adjustment than just the on/off of the 203P. I don't need/want 250 watts for local contacts to hear me better, but might be nice once in a while on good DX days.
I thought the KL 503 HD would do nicely, for a few dollars over the non-HD model I can plug and play and continue to avoid opening up my stock radio (won't need to try to drop the dead key from its current 3-3.5 watts). But then, I read in some forum somewhere that a person considering the 503 should look at the 505v. It was alleged that the 505v is an all around "better" amp that would be more useful down the road when a person finally makes the leap to ham bands.
I did see that the 505v advertises 3-30MHz vs the 25-30MHz of the 503. I don't know what the ham bands are but it kinda makes sense that an amp that can do a wider range of frequencies could be worth spending a bit more. If its a "better" amp anyways all the better.
That would really be peaking my budget though, by the time you add the low pass filter for another $42 and add some shipping we're talking around $400 probably to go the 505v route. That's a hefty bill considering I hardly have half that much into the rest of the base station setup so far. I don't want to buy a 203P just to wish for more power later and end up with the 203P on the shelf, so maybe this is a "do it right, do it once" kinda purchase(?)
