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Reviews For: Mirage B-2518-B

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

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Review Summary For : Mirage B-2518-B
Reviews: 3MSRP: 369.95
Description:
25W in 160W out 2 Meter VHF Amplifier w/ FM/SSB/CW Modes & GaAsFET Pre-Amplifier
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0033
N5JII Rating: 2011-03-14
negative Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This amplifier never delivered over 90 watts and would only accept 14 Not 15 watts in . Emailed Mirage twice and never got an response!!!
W5WDV Rating: 2011-02-05
Does what it's designed to do! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Purchased second hand from a SK's estate sale. Output is a solid 160 with 25 in, preamplifier is very effective for the weak signals. Does not seem to add any additional noise other than what's already on the band. Work exceptionally well with my Icom 7000 in SSB mode, contacts in excess of 120 miles are common place running the amp. FM ranges about 80 miles reliably. Very pleased.... Guess I got a good one! I did add a 120mm fan that sits on top of the unit forcing a good stream of airflow for those long QSO's. Fan has variable speed control so it's not creating additional fan noise in the shack. Crank up the speed and you have a continuous duty amplifier that is barely warm to the touch.
AK9S Rating: 2003-07-08
Still working... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Almost a year later, this amplifier is still working in my mobile. However, I am unable to get full output using the "recommended" wire gauge and length for full output as stated in the manual.

Using 8-gauge wire at 11.5 feet, driving with 25 watts, I only get 140 watts on a dummy load with 13.8 volts in.

After doing some checks, I found that the amp appears to absorb 15% of your input power, regardless if it is ON or OFF. This seems to explain why the amplifier does only a 140 watts in 25 watts of drive.

Attaching a good watt meter directly to my radio, it measures exactly 25 watts. Attaching the Mirage amp (turned off), it drops to 21 watts. Doing it again at full radio output, it measures 72 watts (Icom V-8000). However, placing the amp in-line reduces it down to 61 watts on the output side of the amp.

Any thoughts as to why this happens would be appreciated.