The AM Forum

Silicon Carbide FETs from Microsemi can produce about 2 kW pulsed at 15% duty factor at 200 Mhz now. Vdd is > 100 VDC. Finally something that can replace a tube with respectable Pout.

What's the price tag?

If you have to ask you cant afford them :o

That's the point exactly....

Fets that handle 1 to 2kw are nothing too new, they've been around a few years.

But most of them cost over $1k each

Not exactly "experimenter's devices"

 ;)

Right, and a slight mistake in the circuit buildup and those nice little kilobuck doodads let off a flash like a Romulun disrupter haha.

Buck a watt for a delicate fet or 40 cents a watt for a durable toob. hmmmm (20 cents a watt on the bigger toobs)

VHF and UHF devices ~ price around $1400 each in single lot quantities.

Correct, price is less than 2 kilobucks per device. All the new kW level devices so far are 50 V LDMOS parts, these are 120 Volt wide bandgap devices, so they run high temperatures and matching is quite simple. Since we are building a 5 kW brick at work, then going to make a 25 kW unit, this is quite cheap, compared to trying to combine many lower power devices.

I doubt us hams could afford it, but these are the bellweather of things to come. I reckon that thermionic devices under a kW will eventually be rare except for the seemingly plentiful supply of NOS glass tubes like 813s and 6146.