| M0HJO |
Rating:  |
2021-05-06 | |
| Good for the money, or is it! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I had a problem with the amp after 10 months, it was returned to Acom for warranty repair. (PA)
Upgraded and repaired to the latest spec. Seems to be fine and improved, maybe, you can hope!!
. Only used into resonant antennas.
. Used at 1/3 of its output. (400W)
. I work, so used sparsely.
. Looked after like a baby.
It's now been sold, just don't trust it, never had a problem with my PW-1 in 10 years or Tokyo Hy Power.
It's a ball ache to send back for repair.
Now have the SPE Expert 1.5K FA, happy!! |
|
| NJ0F |
Rating:      |
2021-03-28 | |
| Awesome amp! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I own two 1200S amps and I never had a single issue with either. Having said this, any solid state amp likes resonant antennas. These are no exception. Great amp. Just like any other Acom. |
|
| N0ORQ |
Rating:      |
2021-02-17 | |
| Broken after using for 2 weeks |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
---------------------02/16/2021
February 8, 2021, was the best day of the year so far. I received my 1200S back from DX Engineering on that date. 3 months was a long time to wait, however, I'm happy it wasn't longer.
It has been working well for the last week. However, any more than 5 Watts input causes the 1200S to a soft fault. That 5 watts input can get me between 200 and 900 watts. It all depends on how I set up the Mic/Car gain, the PRO.I, and the PRO.O.
Guess I'm going to have to call Val sometime when he is working and see what I'm doing incorrectly.
I bought this from DXEngineering. I called up and ordered with someone over the phone to make sure the order was correct.
It showed up in a timely fashion however the Acom 1200S 240V amplifier had a European power cord. So I waited another six days while they sent me a power cord for the US.
It worked fantastically for the first 14 or 15 days. Then, I was tuning around the dial when I had a power outage. It was just an On and off. Everything at the station powered down.
Everything powered on properly again except for the Acom 1200 S. When turning on the Amp it went to the first screen and displayed an error message. Something about a PA under Volt condition. Pressing any key powered the amp off again. I tried this three or four times and the fourth time the magic smoke started coming out of the amplifier and it smelled like burnt plastic.
So I shipped it back to DXEngineering about two weeks ago For repair. This is very disappointing! |
|
| VE7VMM |
Rating:      |
2021-02-14 | |
| Excellent Solid State HF Amplifier |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
VE7AM/VE7CAT/VA7NB
Excellent solid state amp from Acom.
In a nutshell here are my pros. and cons. regarding the Acom 1200s
Pros:
Easy to set up and use. It is very quiet (compared to my old TL 922) and has a great automatic protection system. The amp requires little drive power (10W in … 800W out … on 17 Meters.)
The manual is well written and easy to understand.
Cons:
Long lead time. Had to wait over 4 weeks for delivery from the Canadian Dealer ( due to Covid 19 situation). Should improve in the future.
I wish it had more than 1 antenna i/p.
And finally I wish it had some sort of o/p power control.
The antenna i/p is easily solved using a tuner.
I plan to get the Acom 04AT tuner that mates with the 1200s … only thing is that the amp has to be on to be able to bypass the a/t … guess I can live with that!!
So far I am extremely satisfied with the Acom 1200S and have no problems recommending it.
|
|
| DL3YEE |
Rating:      |
2020-12-29 | |
| ACOM A1200S with ATU 04AT, great working!! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have been using the ACOM 1200s with the ATU 04AT for 2 weeks with my FTdx101MP.
I am excited about the remote control of the antenna tuner and working with the PA.
Each setting is easy and simple.
More information here again after a while.
My antenna is the R7 from Cushcraft, which only needs the tuner on the 40m band! |
|
| N4ATS |
Rating:      |
2020-08-01 | |
| Wonderful Amplifier |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Gorgeous amplifier and very well built and easy 1200 watts out at 45 watts drive but I run it lightly at 700 - 800. Super quiet and plenty of ventilation. This amp will be a keeper in the shack with my Kenwood TS-890. |
|
| N3FAA |
Rating:  |
2020-07-31 | |
| Beautiful Design. Great Performer! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
This amp is absolutely gorgeous. The design makes it look like a really nice audio system component or such. It's big, and heavy (larger than I anticipated), but looks beautiful sitting on the desk.
Performance on 120v is 600-700w max. 240 gives an easy 1200w with about 20-25w drive. I usually keep it at around 15-17w drive for 1000w out, and it does it comfortably and quietly all day long, regardless of mode. I have yet to see the fan go above the 2nd notch, and even when running the fan test, full fan isn't that loud.
Great amp!
====================================
Update 5/22/20
Unfortunately, my amp started having several faults, powered itself down, and continues to power down any time you turn it on. I sent it in to HRO for warranty work, and they believe it is either the power supply, PA, or both.
Parts are now on order from Bulgaria, and it is taking forever. It has been 6 weeks now with absolutely no movement, and no end date in sight. HRO hopes to have it to me by mid-June, but they don't know.
This is exactly what I originally feared buying an amp from Bulgaria. Even though the repairs can take place in the US (HRO or DXEngineering or the like) the parts still need to be shipped from Bulgaria.
In the process of purchasing another amp right now, and will decide whether to put the 1200S up for sale if and when I finally get it back. Not sure yet.
====================================
Update 6/18/20
Well, down to 0 Stars we go, especially considering all the other people who are stuck in the same situation as me. Today marks exactly 2.5 months since the amp has been in HRO's hands, with no update or repair in sight.
Already bought me another legal limit amp, so the Acom will be going up for sale as soon as I get it back. Will never buy another product from Acom again. Should have trusted my gut.
====================================
Update 7/30/2020
Got a call from HRO this morning. My amp is repaired and on its way back to me, almost 4 months to the day. Nice job HRO! Not so nice job Acom. Expect to see it in the Classifieds soon! |
|
| WR5O |
Rating:   |
2020-07-13 | |
| Not what its cracked up to be |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I wanted to get with the times and go solid state so I looked at many amps in this price range and settled on the 1200S. It worked great at first (like other reviews here) but then started glitching and finally blew while transmitting into a dummy load (and yes, it was a proper dummy load). Sent it back to HRO and sure enough it is the PA board. As others have stated here the boards are not easily available and now it is the waiting game. I don't want the amp back so I'm trying to work something out with HRO. They have been exceptional in their customer service BTW. UPDATE as of 7/13/2020 still no repair
|
|
| NW0T |
Rating:    |
2020-05-23 | |
| Amazing |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have owned this amp for a few weeks now, and it is absolutely amazing! Looks beautiful and feels solid. Not light, but not too heavy. Full power with 240 volts, and even though the manual states 500 watts with 120 volts, I had no problems exceeding that.
Full rated power on all bands with 30-40 watts of drive. Most bands will do 1200 watts with no problem.
I have heard nothing but great things about the quality of my audio while using this amp. You can talk all day and never hear a fan speed up. When running digital and they do speed up, they're still not bothersome. There are 4 fan speeds, I haven't gotten past the first 2.
I like the layout of the screen, and the menus are very easy to navigate. Perhaps future firmware will add more options, but for now, I knew what I was getting and am completely satisfied.
I haven't had any problems with the protection circuitry being too sensitive, but perhaps my tuner and antenna are to thank for that. The only "alarm" its given me so far is for forgetting to change the band.
The customer service is great. I emailed them with a quick question, and had a response back from Val within hours.
For what its worth, i am using this with an Icom 7300, LDG AT-1000PROII, and a Myantennas EFHW-8010.
Obviously this is a "first impression" review, and ill come back in a few months and update it, but for now, this amp is an 11 out of 10!
Update:
While it worked, it worked great. It was a 5/5 the entire time, until....
After using the amp for 1 year, the output power started fluctuating during transmissions. Sent it in to HRO for warranty repair in the middle of February, and they found that the "PA Module" is bad. 3 months later and they're still waiting on parts from Acom. As i understand it, Acom is waiting on parts from their suppliers. They could not give me a definite answer as to how long this will take. HRO confirmed that I am not the only person with this problem. |
|
| SM6TKG |
Rating:      |
2020-02-11 | |
| Acom 1200S, ATU 04AT Fully automated & integrated solution |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had the A1200S together with the Acom ATU 04AT for more than a year now with some different antennas, so i feel qualified to write a review.
Together with the ATU 04 your station becomes a 1 KW rig, everything fully automatic. very convinient even includes a 4 port antenna switch.
Select a frequency, then the PA selects right antenna and tunes from memory within milliseconds. It does that in the background without you even noticing. So even when listening your antenna is allways tuned and you are allways ready to start transmitting.
Tuning is just one click on the PA, the PA tells the rig to reduce power, starts transmission, adjusts, store into memory, all within a couple of seconds.
(I have found one bug here that in SSB mode with at least the FTDX3000 it does not change back mic gain to previous value)
If you can not tune your antenna with the ATU 04 you probably should not use it with a amplifier. It tunes quite high SWR antennas with reduced power when operating.
It delivers 950-1150 watts power in CW depending on your antenna and how hard you want to drive it. I usually drive with about 20W and that gives approx 1KW. Nobody can hear the difference if you push it harder.
Fault detection is awesome, it monitors everything and if anything is wrong it instantly stops, prevents transceiver from transmitting and even in some cases shuts down. It protects you from temporary errors in your antennas as well from your own stupid misstakes.
To get the full automation you need to have a CAT connection to your transceiver and I higly recomend that. Acom provides good cable drawing for various transceivers so connection is easy. I have not tried the remote connection capabilities.
My ATU 04 is placed outdoors about 50 meters from the schack by the tower. No control lines only the coax is needed. This minimizes losses in coax as well makes your life easy when installing antennas.
It is a quiet amlifier but not a silent amplifier.
Support from Val in Bulgaria is excelent.
I have had no issues what so ever once i got everything installed.
Only thing I can see could be better is more antenna ports.
|
|