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Reviews For: Mirage-2516G or 5016G

Category: Amplifiers: RF Power - 6M/VHF/UHF+

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Review Summary For : Mirage-2516G or 5016G
Reviews: 11MSRP: 299
Description:
2 mtr VHF amplifier
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00111.1
KI8BL Rating: 2012-02-21
lmbo never again Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
well bought a used one last month,off of here. was to do 135w with 25 drive. does 50 watts on ssb..thats peak so means to be,with out proper test equipment. that its about 30w actual out put.. Mighty Fine Junk!! MFJ 5016 is worthless as is D1010
WX9DX Rating: 2009-10-15
DOA after 4 days service. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I got this amp from AES at Dayton, Nothing Against AES BTW! I kept it in the box till last week October 5 2009. Then I put it into service. It did not perform as advertised and failed at the 4 day mark. I drove this amp with a Yaesu FT2400 with 150 foot of LMr400 between the amp in the garage and the radio in the house. Then 190 feet of hard line up the tower to the Diamond 500 antenna at 150 ft. I used my RF Concepts for this for years and then put the amp in my truck. It is still working after over 20 years of service. But I did not want to buy this Mirage because I knew they had problems. I was told this is what is available right now at Dayton, so I bought the 5016G, 50w input and supposedly 160W out. Never once did it do 160 Watts nor did it out perform my radio by itself with all the feed line to stations 50 miles away.

I will tell you that with over 46 years in the Two Way Radio Biz and now retired, I am ashamed of myself for buying an amp from Mirage when I knew they had such a bad reputation. It's time for RF Concepts to come back into the market place!

Jimmy, WX9DX
ZL1CYK Rating: 2009-05-27
Got it going....At last! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After considerable assistance from HRO Anneheim the factory were forthcoming with fault finding data for adjusting the finals. No return freight was required. Now all working fine after a very frustrating DOA experience....Mirage needs a good quality assurance program! In the current financial crunch, who can afford to be without one?

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Earlier 0-star review posted by ZL1CYK on 2009-05-21

Ordered brand new from The States....the shipping cost was US$60 and it was DOA...What now another US$60 to send it back for repair?....Shocking!
Purchase with extreme caution.
NT4I Rating: 2007-02-06
MFJ JUNK! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought one brand new and DOA out of the box. I got my money back and will not look back. I will go for a Tokyo Hi-Power.
NL7XH Rating: 2007-02-06
Poor quality Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have used about 8 Mirage amps in our repeater network. EVERYONE of them has problems. Most frustrating is self keying. After the amp drive is removed the darn amp keeps on transmitting. I now use a 70 relay keyed with PTT to insure power is removed from the amp when the drive is off.
Every amp seems to need more power than the specifications show.
I hope I never need another Mirage amp.
NL7XH
AK9S Rating: 2002-12-29
A little better... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After owning a 2516G, which died after several months of use, I decided to purchase a newer model, the 2518.

The same premature tripping problem as before. Rated at 25 watts drive but trips at 8 watts with my radio. Manual says something about some radios having large spikes beyond nominal power when initially keyed. Mirage engineer mentioned a fix by adding an electrolytic capacitor to the amp. Works like a champ for now - wonder if those spikes will kill the amp in the long run? Why doesn't Mirage make an amp that can handle typical 2-meter radios? Disappointing power output on SSB - consumer is not told of low power on SSB until the manual is read. Advertisement claims otherwise...bait 'n switch?

The soldering job on this amp is quite good, as the 2518 uses micro-components. After three months use, the preamp LED went out. Amp performs well, but I'm still disappointed that it didn't do 150-160 watts out-of-the-box without modification. This will be my last experience with Mirage.

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Earlier 2-star review posted by AK9S on 2002-07-02

Bought a new B-2516-G last year and it would only take 18 watts drive before the fault protection would trip. This was at an 1.2 SWR. I guess my watt meter was 30% off!?! Amazing how the same meter registered 25 watts when my radio (5/25/50 watts) setting was placed at mid-power.

Opening the unit revealed a terrible soldering job. It looked like someone's first crack at a soldering project. This speaks for itself, as does the fault protection prematurely tripping.

I would not recommend running full-power on this amplifier, as you may be asking for trouble.

PA5LS Rating: 2002-04-08
Still working Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Its a good year since I wrote my PE1OBG review of my B25165-G experiences.

The third one still works, mostly with abt 130 Watts out on FM. I had to replace an inductor near the output connector once, but that was all.

I strongly reccomend coming to a firm understanding with your dealer on how to act when it breaks down!

73' Leo.
AC5PS Rating: 2002-01-26
Not happy Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This amp was a 2518, I could only drive it with 11 watts max on FM getting 90 watts out. Any more drive would trip a fault. Also I dicovered the manual said that it would only do 110 watts SSB and that is what it did with 25 watts drive. Funny, they don't mention any about that in there adds, that was my last Mirage.
W6CQA Rating: 2001-06-22
Junk! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased new 2516G shortly after MFJ took them over. Amp. arrived DOA. Removed the bottom cover to find the large red wire (main 13.8 line) "floating", a futile attempt at solding to the circuit board. I repaired it myself. Very poor soldering throughout but amp. did seem to work ok after my resoldering. Sold that one and purchased another 2516G (stupid me), about a year ago. This one worked for a few days but output started falling off. After it got down to about 75 watts, I decided it too, was another reject. Hadn't even filled out the warranty card and sold it for salvage. I've owned the brown faced ones, built by the original Mirage/KLM company and they were good working quality units. I will not own another Mirage amp.
PE1OBG Rating: 2001-04-24
only the third worked ! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought a new B2516G some months ago. After 2 minutes Tx there was a loud bang and no output. The "perl" caps in the feedbackcircuit and the coil in the biascircuit had blown to pieces. My dealer replaced it for anotherone with a serial# one up. This had a no-output currentdraw of 7 amps, turned out the biascircuit had a "cold" solderjoint. Again my dealer got me a new one, this time with quite another serial#. It's ok at the time of writing (touch wood...). I'll buy at this dealer again, but no Mirage!