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| Reviews Summary for Mirage D1010 |
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Reviews: 3
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Average rating: 3.7/5
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MSRP: $344.00
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Description: 70 CM Amplifier, with no preamp. 10 watts in delivers 100 watts out.
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More info: http://www.mirage.com
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You can
write your own review of the Mirage D1010.
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VE3FAX
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Rating: 1/5
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Feb 28, 2008 19:20
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Never Worked Right
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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What can I say. This circa MFJ UHF amp has had nothing put problems from new, starting with low output power of 60 watts.
MFJ seems to set them up for ATV with the exception of a few lasts mods, so this may be the cause for the factory low power. I never got a satisfactoy answer from MFJ and felt the added shipping / brokerage costs to return it from Canada wasn't worth it. I already had the feeling this amp was not worth spending another dime on...and was right.
With amp in line, but turned off, HIGH SWR was the norm. I later found it to be related to the relays, which showed a high resisatance even in "bypass" mode. Opening them , I expected to find them burned, but they were clean as a whistle. The problem seemed to be some clear coating of film which had to be burnished off. I suspect it was caused by the HUGE amount of factory glue used on the relay covers, and perhaps particulate fumes contaminated the contacts. (I dont recall the make of the relays at this time)
With that fixed, the matching of this amp still left a lot to be desired. The bandwidth and area of best match (1.5:1) on mine was vector analyzed at 431MHz with a BW of abt 500Khz. (They arn't tunable.) Everywhere else it was unuasble do to high SWR. (3:1 min)
Unfortunatly, the amp soon smoked while testing it one day into a dummy load to investigate the low power problem- I suspect it went into occillation, as experienced by other owners,(perhaps it always was) and took out the finals. Opening the case revealed the 100 Ohm variable BAIS resistor for the finals flamed out and melted. It was factory set at close to 0 ohms.
In my opinion, this amp is not even worth the repair cost of the finals, with me doing labour.
These amps may come with either M25C25 finals (mine) or MRF 648, as indicated in my included schematic- which bore very little resemblance to what my unit actually had in many parts of its cct. This model has obviously been the subject of may factory tweeks and revisons.(Lots of long flying leads on caps/resistors attached to those power transistors!) I read from another user that their techs try everything except VOO-DOO to get these amps to stablize.
Driver is the MRF466 and you must exercise caution to not overpower the input.
You can guess by now that I thought this amp was a waste of time and money and a HUGE dissapointment, not to mention the dismal Mirage (MFJ) service. No effort or offer was made on their part to solve my complaints nor did they show interest in my findings about the relays / low power/ SWR from the factory- (another reason I didnt bother sending it in for service)
I would STRONGLY caution anyone about purchasing this UHF amp (and the ATV model) and to try something from a different manufacturer.
I also have an early Mirage (Beige face) non-MFJ amp for 160W -2m, which I bought used. I am happy with it, but it was made by a different company. Its only service soon to be required will be a relay replacment.
Hope my experience has helped. You can hope mine was an isolated case, but web and user group searching will reveal others with similar experiences.
73 es GL
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N0TTW
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 21, 2006 21:43
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Worked great
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I bought this amp on ebay about 3 years ago and used it on a FT-100D. I have since traded it last year and I'll tell you that this amp worked fine.
Even though it had no built in preamp, that was not a problem. Most people put a mast mount preamp up and this amp will allow DC to pass to it.
If you use this amp on SSB I recommend you use a way to hard key it rather than use its internal RF detector as this is (and with other brands) a flaky circuit.
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NE0P
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 31, 2004 23:39
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Nice output for 70cm
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have had a couple of D1010 amps, and each one did as rated-putting out 100 watts plus on UHF. You can now find these used at pretty reasonable prices, and get a pretty decent jump in your 70cm power. Made a nice difference going through the satellites and on tropo. Even had a couple of partial calls copied on meteor scatter using WSJT.
The D1010 didn't come with a built in preamp like the RF Concepts amps did. That was a drawback, although many weak signal operators prefer to run a mast mounted preamp for UHF.
You need to understand, though, that there are 3 generations of Mirage amps:
1. The brown and white face amps. Made by Mirage who I think was under KLM at the time. Very good amps.
2. The black face amps made in California. Look on the back to see the company address. These tended to have blue rocker switches. Mirage had split off into its own company. Good reputation on these amps also.
3. The black face amps made in Mississippi. These are the ones made after MFJ bought out Mirage. These tended to have red rocker switches. I have never used one of these. I personally have had good luck with MFJ products, but others don't like them as well. Draw your own conclusions.
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