Neither the sweet sixteen nor the messengers will go down to the bottom of 80 with full Pout.
I own a M2000, a converted M4V (converted to a pair of 455s driving 8 2879s... Combiners will NOT hold up, started a fire in it, and I keep it a a conversation piece), a M1200, Sweet Sixteen, Hot Plate and a few others... I've run almost all the Messengers made, and built a few AM30s when Messenger was in San Diego / Mission Valley.
THAT BEING SAID... They both work fine through 40 meters. Mine start to drop off in efficiency around 60M. They will still work, you just need to reduce Pin to keep Pdiss in the ferrite to a reasonable level... I keep my M2000 at half power below 40, and it's happy.
I've NOT tried retuning either amp.
My sweet sixteen is about the same. The combiners in it are about a quarter the size of the combiners in the Messenger equip.... Meaning, a COMBINER in a Texas Star is about the size of the SPLITTERS in the INPUT side of a Messenger.
Having a driver in an amplifier is a recipe for disaster. Transistors are inverting amplifiers, so two stages of amplification in the same box really does invite oscillations, especially with the stage gains we see on 'CB'.
Where it me, I'd go with my Messengers on the amateur bands. They run REAL bias networks, LOTS of bias on the bases (too much, in fact, IME) and are a cleaner amp than the Texas Stars..... Matter of fact, legal limit mobile for me is my Messenger M2000.
--Toll_Free
