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Quote from a new 8410 owner -
From Robert, MØCRY
I bought this Amp after seeing one run continuously during the Olympic Games special event Station 2012L. It ran throughout the whole of the both the Olympic and Para Olympic games without a hitch -
Great Product and Great Service
Also, from Don, VE3PM as posted on eHam.net
After doing a lot of homework on which legal limit amp to buy my decision was definitely the Alpha8410. Here are some of my reasons:
- Built like a tank!
- 4 year factory warranty
- Very solid and well engineered
- Very easy tuning
- Excellent fault protection
- Low drive from the exciter delivers full legal limit output
I have owned my Alpha 8410 for about 6 months and am very happy with it. RF Concepts people are fantastic and will treat you the way a customer should be treated.
Go ahead - order your Alpha 8410 today!
You won't be sorry
Don, VE3PM
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The View From Operations from Kathy Foster-Patton, KB2HDT
After all the rush to get ready for Visalia and Dayton, this month is all about the hum of activity in the factory as we fill those orders and ramp up for production on the the new A-series wattmeters.
73,
Kathy,KB2HDT
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From the Alpha "Diplomatic" corner........
That's how I spent many busy hours at Dayton - talking to new and old customers alike. It was a grand time!
This month I'm busy working on the 9500 upgrades with many of you. Please be patient as I get around to everyone.
Next show on our list is Huntsville in August - hope to see many of you there.
73,
Molly, WØMOM
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As always, you can get a FREE Alpha Baseball cap with your Call Sign embroidered on the back for posting a review on eHam.net
 Go to eham.net and post a review on any of our Amplifiers, send us a note through the "CONTACT US" tab on the front of the website and we'll send you an embroidered Baseball Cap. Thousands of people have these caps!
List Price: $15.00
Our Price: ZERO
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Product Availability?
RIGHT NOW
IN STOCK 8410
2 WEEK BACKLOG
9500
8406
A2000
Wattmeters
Specific product availability is listed on the front page of the website, as is turnaround times for our repair department.
And, as always, the most up to date information on the happenings at the company are listed there too. Check it out at:
Thanks
for being so committed to a great brand, a hard working group of people, and our great hobby.
Call us if we can help you :
303-473-9232
The folks at Alpha:
Joe, WBØPJZ, Michael, AA6DY,
Glenn, AEØQ, Brad, KØHM, Steve, WA2NFR, Carey, KXØR, Gordon, WØRUN,
Kathy, KB2HDT, Petar, Pam, Carol, KDØVCT, Mike A.
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 It's finally summertime in the Rockies! Dayton was a wonderful time. I truly enjoyed meeting our customers and resellers at Dayton. What a great bunch of folks. I had so many wonderful discussions I could hardly talk for a week following Dayton. Needless to say, next year I will begin strength training for my right hand a few months earlier! I never shook so many hands in my life. I would not trade that experience for anything!
I would like to thank everyone that stopped by the booth and said hello as well as those folks that looked at amps, the new tuner, Dan's software, and our new wattmeter offering. Additionally, I would like to offer a special thanks to everyone that purchased products from RF Concepts during the Dayton special! We are very pleased to have you as part of the family! Needless to say, the factory is busy building amplifiers, dummy loads, watt meters, etc.
A4040 Tuner Update
At Dayton this year, we demonstrated an operational A4040 tuner. The overwhelming response was amazing! The booth was filled with folks most of the time looking at the tuner running a full automatic tune operation. Many folks commented on how cool it was to watch it tune all three elements at the same time and arrive at a final solution quickly and accurately. We had a few folks that did not believe it, so Ken placed a different load on the tuner and they got to observe it tune to the new solution just as it did with the original load. As in all demonstrations, there were a couple of occurrences where the tuner had a mind of its own and refused to tune (probably did not feed it enough electrons during the day). This is one of the "bugs" we are working to resolve before shipping the tuner. All in all, the show went very well. The tuner was well behaved throughout the three days of continuous running back and forth. When do we ship? Soon!
8410 Monitor Software
In Conjunction with Dan Greil, AE9K, we at RF Concepts are proud to announce a new 8410 software package designed by Dan and co-integrated with RF Concepts. Gordon and Dan have done a terrific job at coming up with a monitor program for this amplifier - and for the 8406. More details are included in Dan's article below. Release date is still to be announced. The demonstration of Dan's terrific tool was held at Dayton this year. I would like to congratulate him on an outstanding showing!
A4510A/4520A Watt Meters
At Dayton, we also announced and demonstrated the new 4510A/4520A Wattmeter. The new wattmeter ran continuously during the show. This meter sports improvements in accuracy, performance extension through six meters, and a new USB serial port attachment. Gordon has written about it in his article for this newsletter. The new wattmeter is available in both the three and five kW models, with availability starting in early July (estimated). The new wattmeter has completed testing and met the requirements for FCC part 15 compliance. We are now ramping up production so that the meter can ship, until then, we are taking pre-orders for the new wattmeter. As promised before, we will not announce a new product or a ship date until we are confident of it being achieved.
A2000 Dummy Load
Since this was the first Dayton at which the new A2000 dummy load was demonstrated, we also operated it at full power delivered from both an 8410 and a 9500 at different times. The new dummy load performed flawlessly. The A2000 sports a full legal limit power rating under continuous key down conditions. The SWR is less than 1.3:1 from DC to 54 MHz. We are currently shipping the dummy load in production. If you are looking for a rock solid, no time limit dummy load, Give it a try - I can guarantee you will be pleased!
9500 Firmware Upgrade
Recently, we announced a software upgrade to the 9500 amplifier. This software upgrade has a lot of enhancements embedded in it that should significantly improve the user experience. Gordon has made some terrific improvements in the auto tuning algorithm, how the amplifier initializes itself, and in how it reports soft faults. Installation of the new software is being handled on a case by case basis. We want to make sure that everyone has an exceptional experience with the new changes. We know there are a few amps in the field that are exhibiting wattmeter calibration issues. In order to fully utilize the new release, we want to ensure the wattmeters are set up correctly prior to installation of the new firmware. If you would like the new software, please send an email to info@rfconcepts.com and request the new 9500 firmware upgrade. You will be contacted, a time will be set up for the install, and you will be good to go. We are taking folks in the order that their request is being received.
8410 Firmware Upgrade
Along those lines, we are also releasing a software revision for the 8410. This improves the handling of faults and corrects the LED response to fault indications. Other minor changes have also been included to support the new tools from Dan Greil and the 8410 monitor software package. More details will be made available soon. Our intended release date for the 8410 package is June 14. It will be available on the web for download.
9500 Remote Software
We are beginning to take a serious look at the 9500 remote software package. Over the next few weeks we will be analyzing, modifying, testing, along everything else required to get a good handle on what needs to be improved. If anyone has suggestions on enhancements, please send those to info@rfconcepts.com. We would love to hear from our customers about their experience with the existing tools.
Best regards,
73,
Joe, WBØPJZ
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Thanks to many of you we had another wonderful Dayton event. You seemed to be impressed with our 4040 Alpha Auto Tuner demonstration and supported us in to getting it to you in perfect form before one is shipped. That will be done for sure.
50/25/25 Deferred Payment Plan
I want to bring to your attention our continuing support of Alpha's 50/25/25 Deferred Payment Plan. Details are posted within our website, www.alphaamplifiers.com. It is a good way of starting your 9500, 8410 or 8406 experience without the complete upfront costs, and at no interest charge.
Trade In-Trade Up
Also, as another alternative to get you to a top line Alpha Amplifier sooner, we have a very attractive trade in program for older Alpha Amplifiers OR competitor amplifiers that you have not been able to sell for some time. Check out our site and call or email the office for details.
Thanks for all of your support. We are greatly appreciative.
Mike
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What do Alpha amplifiers and race cars have in common?
Dan, AE9K, describes the new Alpha 8410 and Alpha 8406 monitoring software
What do Alpha amplifiers and race cars have in common? Both generate a lot of useful performance data that can be sent via telemetry for analysis by their owners. Instead of oil temperature and pressure, RPM, and such we get data like plate and control grid current, RF in, RF out, reflected power, gain and tube deck temperature. Race car owners and amplifier owners both want to maximize performance while preserving their investments as much as possible.
With an 8410 being my first vacuum tube amp I wanted to make sure I was caring for my 4CX1000As properly while getting 1.5 kW out. I was paranoid after having read of scary-sounding and expensive outcomes like vaporized grids. Being an IT guy, I thought the more information I had the better.
Initially I experimented with telemetry using a terminal emulator and Excel to parse the data. While useful, I thought real-time parsing and display of the data would be much better. The features have evolved from a simple display to include peak hold, calculation of data not available from telemetry, operator warnings, fault trapping, wrapping of the Alpha firmware boot loader and most recently a degree of remote control.
While the monitor makes tune-up (the original purpose) easy because the gain and efficiency bar graphs are always visible, my favorite feature as an 8410 operator is the tune/load table that follows the band switch. When changing bands I had to consult my paper tune/load chart which was always a foot further away than my headset cable would allow me to reach. Now, all those tune, load and drive levels have been entered into the monitor and when the band switch position is changed, the tune, load and drive levels corresponding to the new band are displayed on the monitor. There's an optional warning which highlights the tune and load values on the screen as a reminder to tune for the new band. This feature alone has saved a lot of time when jumping around bands during a contest.
In a similar fashion, you can set an excessive drive warning as a percentage over the drive level you enter for each band in the tune/load table. The monitor also enhances amp soft fault handling by displaying meaningful fault messages that persist until a user clicks the message. This way a fault that otherwise is indicated on the front panel for only four seconds can't go unnoticed. The faulting telemetry is also written to a log file on your PC along with the four preceding telemetry strings. In this way the conditions leading up to the fault are also captured.
Interestingly, since the 8410 and 8406 share common firmware, the monitor works just as well with the 8406. The only significant difference is that the tune/load table only stores 6m entries. Otherwise, all the features are equally applicable to both amplifiers.
If you visited the RF Concepts booth at Dayton this year you may have seen the monitor in action displaying telemetry from an 8410 that was transmitting continuously into an A2000 dummy load. While basking in the heat of that 8410 for nine hours straight, I really enjoyed chatting with everyone that dropped by with questions and suggestions. Enough of you asked for a version that would work with the 9500 that it's now on my to-do list after cleaning up some outstanding issues with the 8410-8406 monitor.
In future newsletters, I'll describe in more detail specific functions of the monitor and how these can add value to the already feature-rich 8410 and 8406 amplifiers.
73,
Dan, AE9K
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Letter from Gordon Hardman, WØRUN
A Magic Wattmeter for the Magic Band (and HF too!)
We just got back from attending the Dayton Hamvention, and we got to meet many customers. One of the more frequently asked questions there was "Are you working on anything new?". I always respond with another question "Why would you think we aren't?". Of course, any high tech company always has things up their sleeves, but we don't talk about them until we are ready to commit to making them a reality. At Dayton this year we had a couple of new things to talk about. Elsewhere in this newsletter is an article by Dan Greil, AE9K, describing his super-cool new remote monitoring software for the 8410 and 8406 amplifiers. I want to tell you a bit about our latest wattmeters, the 4510A and 4520A, which produce new levels of accuracy and convenience all the way from Top Band through the 6m "Magic Band".
The 4510 and 4520 went into production in 2003, and we have been shipping them to devoted users for a decade. To say that owners like them would be something of an understatement! With the large analog meter and bright LED digital display, combined with temperature and frequency compensated it rapidly becomes an essential part of the shack. At Dayton this year one owner told me he thought that this ought to be the
first piece of equipment a new ham ought to buy, even before a transceiver! The idea being it would help you avoid so many mistakes in connecting up your first antenna that it would get you on the air with a good signal in less time.After a decade, we decided it was time for a modest upgrade. Norm Gholson, WB4YBY and I discussed it, and we decided to keep the upgrades straightforward. Norm has found a new way to design the printed coupler that allows better cooling and excellent directivity up through 55 MHz. Since the unit uses frequency as part of its calibration, we adapted a frequency counter I had designed for use elsewhere and added it. Apart from that, the biggest noticeable change is that there is now a USB port on the back where there used to be a RS232 connector. The USB port uses the same FTDI chip that all our other products do, so there will be no need to install a new driver if you have already done so. It will "enumerate" as a Virtual COM Port or VCP, just like the 8410, 9500 etc. We kept the front panel user interface unchanged, so it will function exactly the same way as the older "non A" units. Just as before, the 45110A will go up to 3kW, and the 4520A to 5kW.
A fundamental requirement of an swr-computing wattmeter is its ability to discriminate between forward power and reflected power. This ability is expressed as a ratio called "directivity", and normally expressed in dB. We aimed for a directivity of 20dB over the frequency range. This means if there was really zero reflected power (a perfect load), the wattmeter could display only 1% reflected power. The results are shown in the graph below.
As you can see, we easily achieved this (we exceeded our goal by 5 dB or so at all frequencies). Keep in mind that every unit goes through a computer-automated-test (CAT) system before being shipped, so you can be sure it will meet specification. This is done over temperature as well as frequency, since we have found that all wattmeters exhibit some temperature dependency.
We have also done some things on the internal circuitry to improve accuracy overall. As an example, Norm put together a special test setup to compare the accuracy of our meter compared to about $20,000 worth of Hewlett Packard and other gear. This data and the test setup are shown below.
 
The data were taken at 51 MHz, near the upper end of the frequency range for the instrument. As you can see, the error over the range from about 1.5 watts to close to 1.5kW is excellent- the average error is 1%, and the standard deviation only 1.7%! This applies as a percent of the reading, not of full scale etc., as is found on some meters, even on the venerable Bird 43. Since the specifications apply at all power levels, the unit is equally useful to QRP operators. And unlike some competing units, the computed SWR will not change as the power is raised from hundreds of milliwatts to kilowatts. This means you can check your antenna at low power, avoiding QRM to others. Finally, everything is available through the USB port, making this an ideal unit to install at a remote location, allowing you check the radio, amplifier and antenna from your local shack. Those who came to Dayton had a chance to see the unit in action, it was the wattmeter displaying power on whichever amplifier we were running at the time. Now we have a 6m-capable wattmeter to complement the 8406 6m amplifier, so those users can enjoy the same accuracy and convenience as HF operators have for a decade now. 73, Gordon, WØRUN |
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