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This page is dedicated to my Expert amp and Palstar HF-Auto tuner what I paid for the 1.3K-FA you can buy the new 1.5K for the same price. My unit, at this time, is only 4 months old.
My Expert amp is connected to the OptiBeam via antenna jack #1, the 6M beam is connected to antenna jack #2 and my Cushcraft R9 is connected to antenna jack 3. I sold my ICOM PW1 to buy the Expert amp 1.3K-FA with thoughts of downsizing my shack area. After using the amp for a few weeks I realized the deficiencies of the amps tuner, it was not fully automatic. I blame myself for this, thinking its compact size would do it all. The Expert amp tuner uses a look-up table to determine where to set the tuner, it does not actively tune under full power. I should have known the tuner could not tune under full power by its size, despite the tuners deficiency the amp itself is very good. The amp only weighs about 25 pounds and if need be, shipping would be very reasonable. When you setup your amps tuner they have you select the antenna for each band. With the antenna selected they have you tune for each band which covers several sub bands. In the 80M band there are 5 sub bands. If you use all bands there are a total of 29 frequencies you need to tune the amp for at low power. Since the tuner cannot tune at high power it follows the frequency of your software selecting the correct sub band. There is no problem until your antennas SWR changes due to ice, snow or whatever, the next thing you know you have a high SWR warning. The tuner works great for DXPeditions where you transmit on one frequency but if you are chasing rare DX and constantly changing frequency it can become a real headache. I missed a chance several times where the opening was short and I had a high SWR, by the time I re-tuned they were gone. The reason for leaving ICOM's PW1 was age and size. The amp was large and the box to send it back for repair, if needed, was huge. This made me nervous especially with it's age. The amp was a good amp, tuned as needed when SWR was out of tolerance and would easily put out 1K plus, same as the Expert amp although it can reach 1.5K without ALC. If I was to buy the Expert amp again I would buy the 1.5L-FA.
The above is my Expert amp and tuner in my shack.
The above is the dual monitor layout of my DXLab and controlling apps.
The amp has a built-in USB FTDI port for control. I also added RFI clip on ferrite devices at both ends of the cable to eliminate any chance of RF affecting the system. I also provided a link to Amazon for these units. For the amp I purchase AB USB cable with ferrite suppression already added I have made every effort to keep RF where it is supposed to be. Don't forget to ground your computer case to your shacks common ground.
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