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I have a 757gx and an FT-101B. I have listened to the guys on 75m and wondered if the wattage my radios put out for AM is sufficient to have a good QSO there? The 757 is 25w on AM and the 101 is 30-40w for AM. Do most people use an amp for AM ?

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http://www.haminfobar.co.uk

Probably not reliably, best thing you can do is give it a shot... Most of those guys Are running "Big Iron", Boat Anchors, whatever you want to call them... Vintage Transmitters, some Home Brew, some rebuilt AM broadcast transmitters, and probably most popular are the old Transmitters like Johnsons, Collins, Globe, Heathkit, ETC.. Do definitely give it a shot, maybe you'll catch the bug and be shopping for your own Vintage BA....

Thanks ! The best shot I have is with the old FT-101B. Those rigs they're on sound nice.

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http://www.haminfobar.co.uk

Yep, arguably one of the best Ham transceivers for AM use... You could always add an amp...

The 101 will have better sounding AM audio. I do not thisk I have seen a modern day rig that has good AM audio nowadays. Wonder why?

Most of the AM crowd runs the old stuff with big amps. Legal power of coarse.

Most don't have the filter width to pass the audio, that's the main reason. Have to add the optional AM filters and even most of those are just 8kHz so that's a 4kHz audio pass band...which certainly sounds decent, but not like the ridiculous 20kHz that the transformer modulated setups a lot of the class E guys use, which gives you a 10kHz audio pass band width.

You can certainly talk to people on AM with a 25W carrier rig, if the conditions are decent...that's the key. The band has to be pretty short and not noisy, but it's certainly possible and fairly often doable.

Just be sure you have something to add to the conversation if you jump in or you'll take a beating. The AM crowd tends to be highly technical and they don't spare much time for people with nothing to add to the conversation that is going on either.

I have to say I love to learn but when it comes to adding something to an electronics based conversation I am mostly at a loss. I have absolutely no electronics background, zip, nada . Anything I have gleaned has been recent from listening and reading. Way below a lot of the fellas I hear on the bands. I do enjoy listening though. Maybe sometime I can find a group of good ole' boys just having a round table on AM .

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http://www.haminfobar.co.uk

Take another look at that 25 watt thingy. That's carrier in most cases, not total power. Will that be enough to talk to most people? In most cases, yes. Depends a lot on how 'well' those other people are listening, and how. If they have the RF gain cranked back so that they don't have to listen to noise, just hear the real loud stations, you can probably forget it. Has more to do with what 'they' are willing to do, not what 25 watts will do.
- 'Doc

25 watts carrier power is plenty enough to have fun with on 80 AM. Use a good dipole up at least 45 feet in the center and pick operating times when the yahoos are fewest. Just before and during dinnertime. Mid morning weekends are good too. Stay away from giant roundtables and try calling CQ at least 7 kc away from existing AM.

You will find the east coast folks are not using mostly older transmitters anymore. Many excellent sounding signals are made with riceburners like your Yaesu. IIRC that rig doesn't use the crystal filter on AM transmit. Even if it does there are modifications which make it work better than any old tube ham transmitter ever could. Boatanchors are fun but there's no reason not to use a lot of newer models.

That would depend heavily on conditions, 25 watts is not going to be sufficient to hold a "good qso" on a regular basis, to make contacts, yes...

short occasional contacts are a tad different then what I would consider a "good qso" Guess this all depends upon exactly what wants to be accomplished, but I gathered the OP was interested in partaking in those roundtables with those "Yahoos"

LOL, you must know a different bunch then I do....

Very few modern transceivers are capable of delivering an "excellent sounding signal" on AM, the 101 does a nice job though... You are right though the AM filter in the 101 is only active in RX, and then only after mods.

The audio quality/fidelity that a stock 101 is capable of producing, or any other modern amateur transceiver for that matter is not going to be better "any old tube transmitter ever could" on AM....

while a couple of the most recent Icom offerings are passable on AM, All modern HF transcievers are low-level AM modulation and simply sound like shit... I guess if your half deaf most of what you say could be considered fact. Guess it all boils down to what you consider passable quality, however they shouldn't have even bothered including AM transmit on 99%...


If the original OP is seriously interested in getting into AM I would suggest going on over to The AM Forum - Index, lots of good info, and even a Mod or two for a few modern rigs to improve the AM tx.