Long time ham operator here, new to this particular challenge -
I have a software defined radio transceiver that I'd like to try and use to make contacts on HF, in particular 20-meters. Tuning within the 20-meter band is no problem but the transmitter only puts out about 0.05 watts! Great for the lab but arguably not enough power to make any reasonable contacts.
I'd like to amplify the signal up to at least 10 watts, 50 would be perfect if possible.
Being that I may need two amplifiers I am concerned about noise and keeping the signal clean on the way up to the desired output power.
A typical linear amplifier won't even trigger unless the input power is at least 1-5 watts and so this is why I think I may need a two-step amplifier chain, although I'd like to just have a single amplification stage if possible.
So I'm looking for help coming up with a solution, perhaps specific amplifier(s) that I should use to get to the desired output power, based on your experience.