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Reviews For: EB104 Group EB1200

Category: Amplifiers: RF Power - HF & HF+6M

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Review Summary For : EB104 Group EB1200
Reviews: 7MSRP:
Description:
Hf and 6m linear amplifier
Product is in production
More Info: https://eb104.ru/internet-magazin/usiliteli-moschnosti/eb1200-heat-pipes-cooling-system/1-hf-50-mhz-power-amplifier-1200w-mrf1k50h-on-heat-pipes-5-lcd-t
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0073.4
N3QQN Rating: 2022-08-16
Flawless operation for over 3 years Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This amplifier has been trouble free for me on 15 through 80 Meters for several years now. Per the builders instructions, I use it to drive resonant antennas (hexbeam and inverted V) and have really enjoyed using it. It is well built, simple to use and its performance is very repeatable. It takes a good quality power supply to feed the beast, 50VDC 30 Amps is needed. I found a Meanwell switching power supply that has worked trouble free with this amp.
N5OU Rating: 2022-06-04
Great amp for experienced hams. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I owned and operated two of the EB104 Heat Pipe units (EB1200) and they are absolutely solid in operation. If you have no experience building or maintaining amplifiers, I would probably get someone who does have experience to help set it up once it arrives. P.S. used makes a huge difference in reliability and output. I use Eltek flatpack 2's (I have both 2000w and 3000w) and they work great, even for key down 1000w output (about 29 amps continuous in my humble experience.) If you want to trigger the protection, use a high enough SWR that will take out any amplifier without an auto[-tuner, it works as advertised. If you assemble it without the 2nd fan on the heat-pipes, it will burn things up guaranteed ( I have helped others with them and seen exactly that.)
OZ2BMC Rating: 2021-12-28
Stable and sounds great Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I bought mine 2nd hand. Or actually 3rd hand as I know the previous owners.
It's stable. I just set it up, powered it on and began to use it. No trimming or repair at all. Maybe the previous owners took the hard work?
ONLY negative comment is that it seldom delivers 1200 watt. I does show 1.1xx watt in the display but an external meter show that it's some 100-150 watt to high. I typically run 1000 watt with 50 watt in.
S0R Rating: 2021-10-04
Problems with EB1200 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It seem the same problem all over the world. The EB1200 seemed OK, but in more than one year I hardly say its working ! ( twice burnt transistor - even they say protection is good, cooling - even watter- not suficient, I sent it back to Victor for repaired (after Victor did not wanted to hear anythig, Got it back but stil , if the antena is not 1.2 : 1 protection(s) light goes ON,... at least it works something on 20m but not as it should!
Some other friends bought EB1200 except one only problems ! So dont buy anything there !
W8MQW Rating: 2020-12-28
Superb quality PCBs and straightforward engineering Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been building amps using EB104.ru power decks for years. Their PCBs are of superb quality and their designs are rugged.

I have now bought and used three of their built amplifiers, one 2400-W watercooled, and two 1200-W vapor cooled. All are great performers. The most recent vapor-cooled amp (using the MRFX1K80) with the touch screen is the best yet, since the MRFX device is more linear than the earlier UHF-FM BLF188s.

Their vapor-cooled amps are amazing quick to recover thermally since they exploit boiling heat transfer (and they are whisper quiet).

I have always had capable, friendly technical help from Yana. You must allow for the fact that English is not their native language. I have met both Yana and Victor; both are straightforward and are acting in good faith. Be considerate. It is great equipment.

EB104.ru equipment is the best value for the money for the technically capable amateur.
VA2WR Rating: 2020-07-09
EB1200 Heatpipe cooler. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I received the EB1200 Heatpipes cooling system last february and its working great. I have no issue and I'm driving it at 80 watts on ssb, 1200 watts output on 80 meters.
Maybe the only bad thing is the coax Victor use, they are hard to bend so when you put it in the box you have to be careful with the coax ( so239 ) but for the price the EB1200 Heatpipes cooling system is a great purchase.

VK4TI Rating: 2019-06-12
disapointing Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It’s been many months since I took delivery of an EB1200 amplifier from EB104.ru
It appeared to have been well packed inside 20 metres of thin foam wrapped around and around the amplifier many times. Judging from the appearance, the cardboard box had been kicked, dragged and thrown about but the contents seemed ok.
I opened and installed the amp as instructed and tried transmitting, but could hear nothing on receive, so very confusing. On inspection it was clear that there was a receive issue and so the search commenced. Some replacement relays were ordered, however it turned out that bad relays were not the problem in spite of the multi meter reading . After a lot of investigating and measuring it was discovered that there was a fault in the coax wiring in the receive path, effectively grounding the receive side. After several unfortunate and rude emails from Victor at EB104.ru (who insisted that there was no fault), it was obvious that the needed support was not going to be forthcoming. Worse still was an admission that functionality of the receive side was not tested by the builder.
Finally, with a lot of help from a fellow Amateur to correctly reposition the coax cables, the amplifier appeared to be transmitting and receiving well. Relief was short lived after discovering that unless transmitting into anything but a perfect dummy load, the various protection measures were being randomly triggered. Any attempt to put this amplifier on air into an antenna that was not showing a 1:1 SWR was utterly futile. Not having an included relay switching sequencer added to the woes as relay switching was controlled by a single transistor and I had little choice but to purchase a quality sequencer from Minikits.com.au, . After installation this improved things somewhat, but still present was the problem of the amplifier randomly defaulting to bypass mode. Mostly this was 'High SWR', but at times 'Excess power' and 'High Drain Current' protection was also triggered. This amplifier seemed to be on a perpetual treadmill of frustration and additional expense. At least the PA was now well protected from switching transients even if I could not use it for intended purpose !

More help was sought from the local Amateur fraternity. Different sets of eyes pointed to some questionable soldering, solder splashes across boards as well as some build issues BUT the annoying random bypass problem persisted. The control board then came under further investigation. Checking with an oscilloscope showed alarming levels of RF at the input of the comparator as well as at the gate of the three SCR's in the protection circuit. Targeted bypassing with 100nF capacitors had very little effect. That was when the light bulb moment happened. The control board was positioned right over the PA board and the oscilloscope probe revealed that area to be flooded with very high levels of RF. Clearly this was radiating directly into the solder side of the control board, which explained why selective RF bypassing produced next to no effect.

A shield was fabricated and mounted about 5mm under the control board. Success! All the troublesome random bypass actions ceased. It was relatively easy to set the SWR trip level at 2:1 and put the amplifier on air using a real world antenna. No further issues have been noted.

Would I purchase a ampifier again from EB104.ru? Absolutely not! It is often said of consumer transactions that you get what you pay for. I now have an LDMOS amplifier that works as advertised, but in the mix I also endured weeks of of frustration and rude and uninformative email response that should never have occurred. Victor at EB104.ru refused to acknowledge that his product had issues, and simply did his best to wash his hands of it. Unethical imho and no more needs to be said!
Right now I am contemplating adding a stable internal dc supply as the supply drawn from the radio can be variable and the addition of a standby operate switch would be beneficial .
A small sample I know but all verifiable , buy with caution as you pay for what you get