best amp for auto band switching

Walt - KZ1F

Howard less than stacked monobanders at 100' + is WAY too small for serious contesting. I don't recall the **** of this thread was for serious contesting. I suspect most on here are not vying for 'serious' contest station. For those contemplating the difference it is $3,000 or $2,600, vs, what?, $15,000? I'd guess 120' towers with two steppir monsterIRs is around $100,000.

KY6LA_Howard

@Walt A great mountain top QTH goes a long way towards mitigating the need for Stacked MonstIR's. My single MonstIR @85' at 600' ASL less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean typically owns the Pacific in JA and Asia Pacific Contests... For USA/EU contests we have NX6T contest station on a mountain top 1100' above average terrain on the other side of our mountains with stacked beams.and ACOM Amps. Personally I prefer solid state amps,over tubes because of the instant on factor. Too many times I have missed Rare DX waiting for tubes to warm up so my home station is Solid State now.

Jon_KF2E

Ken,

Don't forget about the Yaesu Quadra. I have one and love it. It is solid state, interfaces easily to the Flex for band selection and has a 3:1 tuner. Oh, it also puts out an easy 1kw+. I picked up mine used for $2800. There is a good Yahoo forum for owners and a moderator who is very responsive to questions.

Jon...kf2e

Walt - KZ1F

The Elecraft KPA-500 is solid state, even though it works better with a K3s, it works really well with the 6000 series and DDUtil. Also, hopefully not a contentious observation, power is next to the last item on list of factors influencing station performance...with radio being on the bottom. Nothing beats HAAT.