Engineers are funny. We all have our likes and dislikes and our reasons for both. I don’t really like Harris products. Even when I was in the military, their stuff seemed a little “light.” I suppose having to deal with an MW-50B transmitter at my first full-time chief engineer gig didn’t help that impression. The MW-50 would “blow up” every six months or so. I say blow up because that is the only way I can describe it, no overload lights or any other indication of trouble until the blue lightning flashes and thunder from the PA section. What a POS.
Other Harris transmitters, such as the SUX-1, FM20H, Gates-1 etc have also left me less than impressed.
In order of preference, my choice of AM transmitters would be:
- Any Nautel solid-state unit. Nautel makes good equipment that is well-supported.
- Any BE solid-state transmitters. I favor the A model over the E model, but both are good. One condition, they must absolutely be well grounded and all of the toroid filters provided by the manufacturer must be used when installing.
- Any tube-type Continental transmitter. There are older units, I believe 816R but they work well and sound good on the air.
Really, that is about it.