Doug Smith W9WI wrote:

Dave wrote:

 From what I know about EME, amateurs use reasonably high powers, of the order of 100's of Watts, with many using several thousand (not officially so, but in practice they do).

While I won't say amateur EME operators never exceed FCC limits, I don't see it being a common practice.

I get the feeling it is quite common. There are lots of people with amps capable of well over the legal limis in their country. I have a YC156 amp (5 kW dissipation) myself under construction, and know there are lots of poeple using that tube.

You may see *effective radiated powers* quoted which well exceed the 1500 watt amateur power limit.

I know what ERP is, but I was talking of RF power.

Which is probably more than you wanted to know<grin>.

 > This implies a power 6-7 orders of magnitude higher than what amateurs > use, which puts it into the GW power levels. It is not obvious how
 > those sorts of powers will be readily achieved.

VERY big antennas<grin>

It's just not obvious how practical it all is.

Slow scan TV seems to have died a death in ham circles, but I suspect EME with that is quite practical.