Palomar 250FET HD Amplifier ~ 250 FET HD (331)

I'd go straight to the battery with it. That way you'll know that you have enough power.

 

Go directly to the battery with it and I would use at least #4 wire for the power leads. Yes, it's more than you will need for a 250 but better too much than not enough. Remember: The longer the power leads are, the greater the voltage drop. You might have 14.4 at the battery terminals but after a 10 or 12 foot run up to the dash it may drop by a volt or two. If at all possible, just run the positive lead up from the battery and try to keep the ground lead as short as you can.

I'd also put an inline fuse in the positive lead. You can never have too many fuses.

Good luck with that Palomar. I've heard several of them OTA and they tend to sound a bit crunchy. I'm not a big fan of FET's in RF service.

 

I'm with you on use of Power FETs; they don't call them "fire emitting transistors" for nothing. And using them for RF and trying to keep them within any kind of usable linear range is closely akin go TV sweep tubes for amps. Sure, enough of them together will each add a little boost, but each stage risks the one after it.

It'd be so neat if folks would take the $$$ they were going to put into RF amplifiers (I won't call them "linears" because hardly any of them are) and put the cash into improving the antenna system -- adequate counterpoise mounted adjacent to the coax feedpoint to the "visible" part of the antenna, so that the antenna can be made resonant AND with an adequate SWR and radiation resistance. Then take the other 3/4-or-so of the cash that was going to go into the kicker and use it for fuel, or a nice dinner for the little woman/man/whatever, or buy a round for the downtimers at the next TS.
Just my two cents.
73