Quite some time back - like about 12 years - on a boring February day that to my memory was my birthday and I was killing time waiting for the in-laws to arrive for dinner.... I hooked up my K2 to a Technical Materiels Corporation milspec linear amp... PAL 350. This amp is meant to be paired with a low output TMC exciter (around 1 watt) and is conservatively rated at 350 watts output.
I think I used a Dow Key relay for T/R, dialled down the K2 to a low power level with an attenuator in line for good measure, and about 6 arms and hands to do all the manual switching of the Dow Key relay 110 volt wall switch device and turning the amp to Operate etc. The amp has an amazing number of fail-safe triggers (I guess for fumble fingering operators and newbie GIs, HI) so anything weird or more power than it liked...it just tripped off the safety.
It was a resounding amount of weird fun and I worked Hawaii on 'fone for I think my first and last time... on 20m.
Not for the faint hearted or something I would normally do in the regular operation of the shack. But I had time to burn. And definitely not QSK operation.
This would of course be easier with a rig like the K3 with an key-line output. Heck, even my tube based Johnson Ranger has a key line output in its T/R and receiver mute box. I still think I need a Private to run the TMC amp's knobs, bobs and whistles though.....
Mind you, you should have seen the TMC kilowatt amp that partially devoured my basement for a while... almost as big as a PDP-11 computer frame. Long gone, heavy beast. Did fit into a Volvo station wagon though.
73
Brien VE3VAW
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