Richard Clark wrote:

Ultimately, it takes very little reading applied to the conventional
designs found in Amateur class amplifiers to discover there is really
very, very little modification of amplifier characteristics offered
through negative feedback design (it costs too much). In fact, I
would say none whatever - hence the heavy filtering at the outputs and
the customers' universal acceptance of barely mediocre performance. It
might be said that every transmitter owned by hams is a museum of
1930s performance. And for those who mistake the feedback of
stabilization (barely found in those same cheap designs) - this is not
negative feedback, it is compensation. It too has scant effect on
tailoring (reducing/increasing) impedances.


probably not "every transmitter", but certainly the vast majority of
designs, particularly those for HF based on tubes in the ARRL handbook
(and by extension, those sold to readers of the handbook).

Cost *is* a factor. The Harris PWM modular transmitters are very cool,
but beyond the means of most hams as a commercially manufactured item
(in that, the NRE for a consumer mfr to get there would be prohibitively
high)


One should also not neglect that the hobby aspect of ham radio provides
an incentive (for some) to preserve fine (or not so fine) examples of
past radio art. No more unusual than steam train fans or classic auto
collectors. There is a visceral satisfaction of seeing those glowing
tubes with the plates changing color, notwithstanding that the RF
performance, in objective terms, is horrid.





As I am undoubtedly the only copy holder of this book in this group,
access can be obtained through:

I'll bet not..grin