Some of my Home Built Amps and more.

This was not my first home built amplifier but was the first I have a picture of.  This is a pair of 3-500Zs with an external power supply.  Big squirrel cage blower with chimneys for the tubes.  Some of my earlier amps were 813s and 4-400s.  This one was built with contesting in mind, would run full legal limit 24/7 day in and day out.  It had a very noisy blower and needed to be run outside the radio shack to minimize the noise and heat.

The above amp was rebuilt in 1980,  I had access to a large brake and cutter.  All cabint, front panel and chassis was made by myself.  Only the cover for the meters was a store bought box.  The power supply below and the amplifier were sold to a ham buddy around 1985 and I used an SB-220 and Gonset GSB-201 for a few years.
This power supply had in-rush relay and ran very cool,  It's chassis was also hand built along with the capacitor hold down clamps.  Power supply could furnish 2KW with no problem.


In 1998 I went to work on another attempt to build bigger and better.   Started out with a DX-100B cabinet and and produced one more pair of 3-500Zs in GG with squirrel cage blower and chimneys.  As before fairly noisy and warm in the shack.  Very expensive recessed meters were used and 6 to 1 drives were used for much better tuning and dial in band changes.  Power supply cabinet and chassis was again totally hand built and used an Osbone transformer.

This amplifier was pretty much in service up through 2005.  I did have a Commander HF-2500 for a few years but I didn't consider it a quiet amplifier either.  I started collecting amplifiers and even got my 1980 amplifier back, you can see it in the picture below with three Amp Supply LK500-ZCs and four Drake L-4Bs.  This was done outside the radio shack eliminating noise and heat, any amplifier could be called from the radio shack which gave me coverage for 160, 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 as needed.

This is an inside picture of the 1980 amp in the process of some rebuilding.  The band switch and tank needed rebuilding along with some pilot lamps and switches redone.  Note it looks a little different than when in the above picture.

This is the present amplifier in use and being tested, see Hybrid Amplifier.  I sold all of my other amplifiers and built the XYL a complete new kitchen with appliances.

I'm working on this one and two others, another 160 through 10 and a 6 meter amp.  Come back in the future for more.